Cheat on Death
by sagas.pen
Summary: #3 in the Heart's Blood series. The Weapon Plus Program wants Logan back, and will go to any lengths to reacquire him. He's not prepared to go without a fight, especially not when his mate is threatened. Logan/OFC. See warnings in first chapter.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: The X-Men, Wolverine, subsequent characters and settings all belong to Marvel. I am not receiving any profit from this venture and am solely writing for pleasure. Teva Lawson is of my own creation._

_This is a much, much darker story than those that precede it. The **M** rating is for sex, violence, language, rape and attempted suicide, so if any of these might be triggers for you I advise you to steer clear._

* * *

With the moon in the new phase, the sky was a rich, dark blue just fading into night from twilight, shot through with stars that twinkled through the atmosphere. The warm early-summer air smelled like lilacs from the outdoor gardens, freshly-cut grass and chlorine from the pool, and the two figures lying on the slope of the roof could hear splashing and laughter from that general vicinity. Someone had turned on a radio, apparently one of the adults because it was classic rock instead of hip hop or pop, so that Bob Seger's gravelly voice rolled over the words about a musician on the road.

Not that the couple were particularly aware of it, since they were necking like teenagers. Teva's hands were tangled in Logan's wild, unruly hair as he lay on his back, one arm secure around her middle while his other hand worked it's way up the back of her shirt. She nipped at his lower lip, biting down harder when he growled approvingly and stopping just short of drawing blood. There was a time and place for their particular brand of intimacy, and the mansion's roof was not it.

A loud wolf whistle broke them apart and they looked up to see Rogue flying over, waving and grinning. "Don't mind me, y'all!" she said, banking around until she was out of sight again.

Teva snickered, reaching up to push her hair back out of her face. "Guess we should be glad that was'nae one of the kids."

Logan grinned at her. "Not like they don't see that when the teenagers are makin' out in the rec room like us adults are blind." He gave her one more kiss, just a press of lips against hers, before he sat up and pulled her with him, settling her between his legs so that her back was against his front. His arms wrapped around her and she leaned back against him, sighing happily.

"The view is amazing up here," she commented quietly. "Even if all you can see is the tops of trees, and the sky. I used to backpack in Scotland when I was a lass, and I liked to find places where there was no light pollution so I could see all the stars. I sometimes forget living in cities just how much I miss that."

He kissed her temple, nuzzled his face against her neck and breathed in her scent, Ivory soap and the lavender shampoo she used, motor oil on her shirt from working on her car earlier that day. "I'll hafta take ya up to Canada sometime, way up north where there's nothin' but snow an' animals an' trees. Seems like there are more stars than sky up there."

"Mmmm, I'd love that." She snuggled as much as she could, hooking her hands over his arms. "I have'nae been camping in a verrae long time."

"Maybe when school's out, we'll go."

"It's a date, then." Contentment radiated from her like a heat lamp, carrying with it its own scent, soft and sweet.

Logan felt his breath catch and said the first thing that came to mind.

"Marry me."

She jerked at his words, pulling away and turning slightly so that she could look at him. "What did ye say?" she asked, heart pounding so hard she was sure he could hear it.

He steadied her, his hands strong and sure. "Marry me," he repeated. "Ain't no other place I wanna be than at yer side, Teva. Telepathy or not, ya got yer fingers wrapped 'round my heart so tight it hurts. Feel like I can't breathe when I see ya sometimes."

Tears burned in her eyes suddenly, and she felt her own breath catch. Her throat was tight with emotion, a million things swirling through her head, but none of them doubts.

He tucked her hair back behind her ear. "You've seen every part of me there is, the dark places I never thought I could face, and ya haven't run. Ya haven't let me run, either."

She took a shaky breath, let it out slowly, leaning into his touch when he stroked her cheek. She knew he wasn't quite finished yet but wouldn't have been sure what to say had he given her an opportunity to speak.

"I know I ain't got much to offer, I ain't got but the one name an' not a whole lot to show for it. We're good together, an' I love ya, ain't a doubt in my head I wanna spend the rest o' whatever life I got with ya." He let go of her long enough to dig in his pocket and retrieve the ring he'd been carrying around for the last couple of weeks. "Teva, marry me?"

"Logan, I -" She looked down, first at his hand holding the ring, and then back up at him. "Aye, I'll marry ye." Her voice trembled and she leaned up into him to kiss him, to let the emotion out that way, because she didn't feel like she could keep it contained. When she pulled back he took her left hand and slid the ring on, and she got her first good look at it: a flat band of some silver metal, titanium she thought, with a vine pattern that looked suspiciously like the one on the fretboard of her favorite Ibanez guitar. An opal the size of the nail on her little finger broke the vines, glinting with a hint of fire even in the dark.

"I had it made custom," Logan told her. Relief at her agreement flooded through him, the worry of a million other men before him washing away. He laced his fingers with hers. "Didn't want somethin' a ton o' other women already have, I wanted it to be special."

"Oh, Logan." She reached up and cupped his face, kissed him again before wrapping her arms around him and squeezing him tight. "It's beautiful, _mo chride_, it's perfect. I dinnae ken how ye kept this a secret, though."

He laughed softly, reaching up to sheepishly scratch at the back of his head. "Honestly ain't got a clue, darlin', kept thinkin' you were gonna pick up on it. For two weeks now I been sweatin' bullets and hopin' it'd be a surprise. Wasn't sure I'd make it."

"Well, ye have been a wee bit skittish but as ye get that way sometimes anyway, I did'nae think anything of it." She lifted her head and inhaled. "I think the others are starting the barbecue. We should join them and share the news."

"I'd rather keep ya to myself," Logan grumbled, but he got to his feet and helped her up, too. "Ya sure ya wanna be the center of attention?"

Teva cocked her head to the side. "That is'nae a thing that's ever bothered me, Logan. I'd much rather it be my friends than a few thousand screaming strangers, aye?" She climbed through the dormer window first and waited for him to come in before heading down the stairs from the attic. "Not that I'm not already extroverted, mind you, I just feel more comfortable around people that I ken."

He caught her arm when they hit the main floor, pulling her close before they went outside to join the others. "Quick question: ya want a long engagement?"

She pursed her lips for a moment while she considered. "No, that feels too much like I'm using the time to consider whether or not I'm making a bad decision. I see no reason to drag it out."

"Alright, same here. What about the wedding? Big? Small?"

"Oh, small, definitely, probably just here on the grounds. I dinnae care for anything too fancy, either, I'd much rather be comfortable." She smirked. "I believe you once told me that I'm nae much of a lady since I wear steel-toe combat boots, and you were right. I dinnae care to wear a dress if I dinnae have to."

"So I don't gotta wear a tux?" He visibly relaxed when she shook her head. "God, I knew there was a reason I loved ya." He took her hand in his, kissed her forehead. "Ya ready, baby?"

Charles Xavier was beaming at them from his seat near the door where Hank and Scott were grilling. _~I believe congratulations are in order, but I won't spoil your news.~_

"I was wondering when you two were going to join us," Scott spoke up, half his attention on them and half on the burgers he was flipping. "Rogue said you were up on the roof."

Teva smirked and put her arm around Logan. "So what if we were, Scott? You gonna tell me you've never been up there messing around with a girl?" She caught a hint of grief from him and almost apologized until a smile appeared on his face.

"We're not all interested in running the bases, Teva. At least not all of the time."

"Speak fer yourself, Slim," Logan said. "'Sides, I can't see Emma ever unwindin' enough to make out somewhere she could get caught."

The unmistakable scent of Dior floated on the breeze, heralding the White Queen's arrival before she came into sight. She'd dressed down for once, was actually wearing jeans (designer, of course) with a white top, her platinum blonde hair pulled into a high ponytail. "One must always keep a certain amount of dignity, Wolverine, and not allow their ... baser instincts to take over. It's what separates us from the animals that walk on four legs, is it not?"

Teva could feel the anger that rose up in Logan and knew that he was aware Emma was trying to get a rise out of him, combined with his feelings that Scott wasn't honoring Jean's memory so soon after her passing, but she knew what had gone on there and didn't judge any of them. Sometimes you just found love where you needed it. "C'mon," she said quietly, squeezing him with her arm. "I think there's drinks over by the pool."

Logan let her lead him away but didn't relax until Emma was behind them. "Smug bitch," he grumbled.

"She's just a socialite who thinks she needs to mark her territory, seems to think this place is hers." Teva bent when she got to the cooler and pulled out two bottles of Pepsi, handing him one. Since her concert in Tokyo eight months ago she hadn't touched alcohol at all, though she'd had cravings for it and had trouble sleeping without it until she learned to live without it; but, like all alcoholics, even one more drink would set her off again and it just wasn't worth it. Logan helped keep her honest.

"Thinks she's better than you," he said, accepting the second bottle.

Teva's eyebrow rose. "Oh? And how's that?"

"She's a class 9 telepath, an' yer what, a 4?"

She rolled her eyes. "Aye, and she's got fake boobs and that is'nae the nose she was born with, should I be jealous of that, too?" She fiddled with the cap from her soda bottle. "Dinnae go fighting battles for me, Sir Knight. She is'nae even worth the time it takes to worry over."

"I just don't like someone talkin' bad about - oof!" Logan was cut off by a small child tackling him around the middle, and he looked down to find Molly Hayes with a death grip on him. "Hey, kid, what's up?" he asked, patting her back awkwardly.

"Julian's teasing me again!" the blonde girl said, looking up at him with big green eyes beneath a hat knit to look like a pink rabbit, long ears dangling down past her shoulders. Yet another of the girls he seemed to collect without every really meaning to, but he'd saved her life and gotten her to leave her life on the streets and that earned him her love. Even if she did complain occasionally that he smelled like wet dog. "Except Mr. Summers said we're not allowed to use our powers against other students and I just think that's stupid."

"I know, Moll, but ya gotta listen to 'im." He disengaged himself from her and crouched down so he could look her easily in the eye. "But sometimes ya gotta stick out fer yourself," he said, lowering his voice so that only the girl and Teva could hear. "Pop 'im one an' make sure ya don't get caught, 'cause I sure as hell ain't gonna 'fess up to tellin' ya to do it."

The bright smile that lit up Molly's face was radiant and Teva watched the way it transformed Logan's body language, from wary to proud. She'd never paid much attention to how he was with the kids, mostly because all he usually did was grunt at them or yell at them in combat class, never really showing any true affection for them. Sometimes one got under his skin, crawled into that spot in his heart he thought had been boarded up a long time ago.

Teva reached out, needing to touch him suddenly. "I will'nae breathe a word of it, either," she promised. She fully expected the girl to go bounding off to exact her revenge but she was staring very intently at the hand Teva had placed on Logan's shoulder.

"Are you guys getting married?" she asked in her usual top-of-her-lungs voice. Several heads turned in their direction at the exclamation. "Lemme see, lemme see!" Molly demanded, grabbing Teva's hand and nearly knocking Logan over in the process.

Jubilee and Kitty had stopped playing checkers on the lawn and came over to join the spectacle, Molly still cooing over the ring like it was the best thing she'd ever seen.

"Am I hearing wrong?" Jubilee asked, sidling up to Logan as he stood and draping her arm over his shoulders, easy for her to do with her extra height. "Is my Wolvie getting married? After I carried such a torch for you, too, you're killing me here."

"Stow it," Logan grumbled, giving her a big hug. "Yeah, I asked her, she said yes. Ya ain't too mad at me, are ya, darlin'?"

She gave him a smacking kiss on the mouth and grinned. "Of course not, Logan! I always wondered if you'd wanna get hitched again, after Mariko, and I'm glad it's Teva."

The woman in question was now holding Molly, who'd jumped on her back like a little monkey. She'd heard Jubilee's words and glanced over to find Kitty eyeing her closely, like the Jewish woman expected her to do something; Teva had never had trouble getting along with Jubilee, the Chinese woman full of bubbly energy and accepting of nearly everyone, especially if Logan decided he liked them.

Kitty, on the other hand, had always been something of a closed book to her, being quiet and keeping to herself when she was in town visiting from Chicago, where she went to college. Their first meeting had been strange, Teva remembered, with Logan being uncharacteristically affectionate with her, and how Kitty had seemed suspicious of it. Nothing had ever come of it but Teva always felt as if she were being watched and silently weighed, judged, to determine whether or not she was worthy of Logan's love. She supposed she could understand it if Kitty were merely jealous of her, except it wasn't that, the younger woman had never had designs on his body the way Jubilee had teased about having.

So she stood there and listened to Molly babble while trying to figure out what was going on, if there was going to be trouble with Logan's adopted daughter, at least until Remy distracted her from her thoughts.

"Begone, _petite fille_," he said, removing Molly from her back and shooing her off so that he could properly embrace his 'little sister.' "What on eart' have you gone an' done, _chere_?" he asked, holding her at arm's length.

"I've gone and gotten engaged, _mon frère ainé_," Teva replied, leaning up so she could kiss his cheek. "Seems you'll have a brother-in-law verrae soon."

"Ya growin' up, Teva, right before Remy's eyes." Remy let her go but kept his arm around her shoulder, pulling her close. "Before he know it, you'll have your own _bébé_ runnin' around stealing hearts."

Teva went stiff but managed to keep the smile on her face, even as Logan sent a questing thought to her. _~I'm okay~_ she assured him. _~Remy just caught me off guard asking about kids.~_

_~We'll talk about that later.~_ She felt Logan 'touch' her, a comforting feeling against her astral self that took away some of her anxiety. Some remained behind as she wondered whether or not she was even capable of having children with her family history of miscarriages and barrenness, and whether or not that would effect Logan's feelings about marrying her. She clamped down on that, hard, and tried not to let it bother her.

Their other teammates were making their way over to offer their congratulations, asking if they'd set a date, what kind of wedding they were planning, typical questions for a newly engaged pair. They had the benefit of being able to converse over their telepathic link in shorthand to answer with little hesitation despite the fact they'd been engaged for little over a half hour now. Every time Teva thought of that she felt like giggling, her emotions quickly heading back towards elation, and before she knew it they'd decided to get married in two weeks, in the gardens, surrounded by friends and family.

Logan, finally having booted Remy from his fiancée's side, felt just as joyous as she did, remembered feeling this way when Mariko had agreed to marry him. It was the thought that this woman, that _any_ woman, would choose to put up with him 'til death did they part, that made him want to crow and preen like a peacock. Pride and love warred for dominance and finally settled for sharing space, taking up so much of his mind that he belatedly noticed the way Kitty held herself apart, looking less than pleased.

When Teva broke to go fiddle with the music, he went to his 'daughter.' "What's up, kittycat?" he asked. "Ain't ya happy fer me?"

"Of course I am," she replied, attempting a smile. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"I dunno, but I don't like it when ya lie to me. That shit ain't ever flown with me, Kitty Pryde, and it ain't gonna start anytime soon. So tell me what's buggin' ya 'fore I drag it outta ya."

She scowled. "I just think you're rushing into this," she said. "I mean, two weeks? Don't you need more time to plan?"

Logan squinted at her. "What's it matter how long the engagement is? She an' I have been together for over a year now, all told. Hell, I was with M'iko for less time, an' ya seemed overjoyed when she an' I were gonna get married, even though it meant I'd be livin' in Japan most of the time." He touched her arm and felt how tense she was. "Is that it? Ya think I'm gonna run off somewhere an' ya won't see me?"

"Well, Teva's from Scotland, I thought -"

"That's yer problem, girl, yer thinkin'. C'mere." He hugged her, kept her close. "Teva's home is here, now, has been for some time. So's mine. I ain't goin' anywhere, sweetheart, not if I can help it."

"Well, I feel like a boob. I don't even know why I'm worried, I just - I hate change, you know that."

Logan kissed her cheek. "S'ok, darlin'. We all gotta deal with change, but this is a good one. Ain't nothin' changin' but some vows bein' taken, I'll still be ol' Logan." He hooked his arm with hers. "C'mon, kittycat, let's get some food and go listen to the music."

Teva caught him when he returned, gave him a kiss that recalled the heat between them up on the roof without being too revealing. "Everything okay?" she asked, nodding at Kitty who was talking to Ororo and Jubilee.

"All's well," he said. "Ya think maybe we can slip away from the party?" he asked, bumping his hips up against hers. "I got a powerful need to strip ya naked and make ya forget yer name."

"And hear me scream yours?" She grinned and nipped his bottom lip before pulling away. "Later, _mo gille_, I'm famished. Need to get some food in my stomach before I can even contemplate anything else."

"Hey, Teva!" Scott was calling her name from the back steps and holding up the cordless phone. "It's for you!"

She gave Logan one more kiss. "Make sure the hordes dinnae devour the food before I get back." She danced away from a swat on the ass and made her way back towards the mansion, thanking Scott as she took the phone and went inside to get away from the noise.

"This is Teva."

"I did'nae ken if I'd ever hear your voice again, lass."

"Da?"

"Aye, Teva, and I'm afraid I've nae called with good news. Your mother has passed on."


	2. Chapter 2

Teva kept walking in a daze into the rec room across the hall from the kitchen. "Mom is dead?" she repeated, sinking onto the couch. "When?"

"Just this past Tuesday," James Lawson replied. His voice was slightly tinny, likely because of the long distance. "I debated whether or no tae call ye, Teva, as I ken the two o' ye had your differences."

"How -- how did it happen?" She could feel herself shaking, looked down at her free hand to see it tremble before she curled it into a fist. "I did'nae ken she was ill." Her accent was broadening even further than usual at the sound of his voice and the cadence of her childhood. A sharp pang of homesickness hit her despite the fact that she was already home.

He sighed. "It came on sudden-like, end-stage renal failure. In the hospital just last week for tests, they admitted her, and just as quickly she was gone. I wanted ye tae know, lass, in case ye wanted tae travel in for the funeral in two days."

"Da, I ..." She bit her lip, nearly hard enough to draw blood, the pain giving her something else to focus on. "I dinnae think I'll be doing that, Da. We said our good-byes years ago and I dinnae care tae open up old wounds just tae see that she's gone. I learned a long time ago that I never had much of a mother tae begin with."

There was a silence on the other end for a moment before he spoke again. "And I did'nae make sure that ye had much of a father, either, and I'm that sorry. It's one o' the things I regret most." He paused. "Aye, I understand. And I'll ask ye how you're doing, as it's been tae long since we've spoken."

Teva leaned back against the couch, slouching down until her head rested against the back. "Um, I'm well, actually. I'm a teacher, now, at a school for... for people like me. And I met a man here, Logan, we're tae be married." She hadn't meant to tell him that, had long ago accepted that he wasn't a part of her life of his own volition, had never been there for her when she'd been a child and desperately in need of at least one parent who wouldn't throw heavy objects or curse at her for nothing. "I'm verrae happy here, happier than I ever thought I could be."

"Happier than ye were when ye left Perth and joined your band?"

"Aye, much. I'm who I really am, here, and there is'nae anyone who looks down on me for it."

"Your man, does he treat ye right?"

Despite herself, she gave a small smile and looked at her left hand and the newly-placed ring. "Aye. We've had our share of squabbles but he's a good man, honorable and honest, and he does'nae leave me wondering where I stand with him."

"Is he a teacher, too?"

"Aye. Most of the adults here are, though it is'nae a requirement for living here. We all contribute where we can."

He was silent again for long enough that she checked to see if they'd gotten disconnected.

"No, no, I was just thinking. I saw on the telly, a while back, about these superheroes in New York. The X-Men, I think they were called, taking care of some evil creature."

She remembered that, the day the X-Men had been called out to take care of a monster that the Mole Man, self-proclaimed king of the underground, had unearthed in the middle of Times Square. It had been her first official mission and she'd been terrified.

"And you're wondering if I ken anything about that." It was more a statement than a question.

"I suppose there could be other mutants involved." She knew the tone of his voice, the one he used when he was searching for information without wanting to come right out and ask.

"Does it matter, Da?" she asked.

"Aye, it matters."

"I do ken." She sighed. "And I'll answer your next question before ye even ask it: yes, I'm one of them. And no, I dinnae intend tae stop anytime soon."

"As much as I'd like tae argue with ye, Teva, I ken it'd be a losing battle. Ye always were headstrong and stubborn as a mule. All I'll ask is that ye be careful, I dinnae care tae lose ye before I'm gone as well."

She picked at lint on the couch and felt relief that there wouldn't be an argument over it. "Are ye doing well, Da? Physically and financially, I mean."

"Hale and hearty as ever, lass, us Lawsons always live tae see a century o' life. And as for money, I'll tell ye the same thing I always tell ye: you're not tae worry."

"Dinnae waste your breath, Da." As soon as she'd had enough money she'd sent some back, hoping to ease the burden of her parents' one-income household, more to help her father than her mother. As a bricklayer he'd made decent money but they'd only ever been barely comfortable, sometimes having to scrape by when there was little work to be had. Why she'd cared she didn't know. "Did she suffer much, before she passed?"

"A bit, aye. She was'nae verrae lucid the last couple of days, between the pain and the medication they had her on. She asked for ye, more than once."

Guilt leapt up and gripped her throat, still fresh after so many years. Guilt that she couldn't be enough for her mother, couldn't be good enough so that her mother wouldn't be so disappointed, wouldn't worry so much or want to kill herself bi-monthly. "She -- what did ye tell her?"

James cleared his throat. "I told her ye were on your way. At the end she seemed tae think ye were there." His voice hitched, the most emotion she'd ever heard from him. "She said she was sorry, Teva."

It squeezed, the guilt did, and made it hard to breathe. Teva tilted her head back and sought the calm Logan had helped her find, and it was then she realized she'd shut the link off completely. If he wasn't already coming to find her, he'd be thinking of doing it soon, wondering why she'd shut him out after getting a phone call. "I wish she'd said that before I left home," she replied. "Does'nae do me a lot of good, now, when I cannae speak tae her."

"Ye could have called or visited, Teva."

Now anger bubbled up to take the guilt away. "Aye, and gotten a lecture for it on how I was a disappointment. I gave up hoping tae reconcile with her when I was a wee lass, Da, when I realized I could'nae even have friends because my mother was an abusive drunk. I could'nae even count on _you_ tae shelter me and give me comfort because ye were too busy catering tae her every whim and hoping she would'nae come down on ye instead o' making sure your child was'nae a target." Her breath came short now and a headache began to pound a tattoo in her temple, precursor to a migraine.

"You're right." The admission did almost nothing to allay her anger, almost made it worse coming too little, too late. "I was'nae the father I should have been tae ye."

"No, ye were'nae." Unconsciously she dug her short nails into her palm, seeking clarity in the pain. "I'm sorry she's gone, Da, for your sake, but nothing has changed. I've a family here, one that's never said an unkind word tae me that I did'nae deserve. I've found my home."

A silence grew between them for several long beats, neither one sure what to say. James finally spoke.

"I've two trunks here, of your things. Shall I send them tae ye?"

She had to take a few breaths to get herself back under control. "Aye, I'd appreciate that. Just send them tae Xavier's Institute and I'll reimburse ye for shipping. I need tae go, Da."

"Alright then. Take care o' yourself, lass."

"I will." She hung up then, carefully set the phone down on the coffee table with shaking hands, and got up. For a moment she hesitated, not sure what to do, before deciding she didn't want to cry where any of the mansion's residents could walk by. She left the rec room and took the stairs down to the adult's wing, all but running by the time she hit the hallway to get into her room as the need to fall completely apart chased her down and claimed her.

Teva collapsed on the bed, curling into a ball facing away from the door and hugging Logan's pillow to her as the tears came. So rarely did she cry that her sobs were painful, made her throat burn and want to close up, her head throb even more painfully. Pain and rage boiled in her gut. But she couldn't stop, couldn't do anything but try to empty herself of the grief she felt, not over the death of her mother but over nearly two decades of knowing she was alone. Over the loss of a childhood she'd never had.

She didn't hear the door open and close, didn't notice the bed shift, didn't notice anything until strong arms pulled her into an embrace and rocked her. She abandoned the pillow and burrowed into her fiancé's body, listened to the nonsense he murmured as he rocked her, words in Japanese she only half-understood.

"Let me in, baby," he said, pressing against their link. He could only nudge, couldn't open it himself not being a telepath. "Don't take it all on yourself."

With some effort she opened the door and felt him on both planes, surrounding her completely with his love and his protection. Instead of calming her it made her cry harder for the fact he was there and wasn't going to leave her, wasn't going to let her be hurt by anyone else. She'd found shelter in him she'd never thought she could have.

"Oh, sweetheart." Logan rubbed her back and held her tighter, pushed as much comfort as he could across the link and finally, gradually, she began to calm.

The crying jag left her feeling hollow, like someone had reached into her body and scooped out her insides leaving nothing behind except an echoing vastness. She remained in the shelter of his arms a few more moments before easing away. "I need tae wash my face," she said quietly, asking him to let her go. He obliged and she slipped into the bathroom, turning on cold water to splash on her face, and in the mirror she could see her skin gone blotchy and red, eyelashes clumped together from tears. A few drinks of water calmed her throat but her head was still pounding, the entire right side of her head now taken over by the headache, so she swallowed three Excedrin before going back into the bedroom.

Logan had flopped backwards onto the bed, his legs hanging off the edge, and he sat up as she came out. "C'mere," he said, holding his hand out to her.

She came to him, sat down beside him and rested her head on his shoulder.

"So yer mother passed away," he said, making it a statement rather than a question. "I'm guessin' yer more angry than sad about it."

"I came as close tae hate with her as I ever did without crossing that line," Teva replied. "And I'm angry that my Da could'nae even call me when she went into the hospital. Annoyed that I dinnae even ken what kind of difference that might have made, I doubt I would have flown out tae see her, but ... I did'nae get the choice."

"He took it from ya."

"Aye." She stroked his hair bound back behind his neck, the shoulder-length mass thick and silky against her fingers. When she'd manifested her empathy she'd stopped touching people, finding that it was harder to shut things out when skin contacted skin; only when she'd come to Xavier's and learned control had it stopped being a problem, and Logan had slowly taught her that touch was something to look forward to. For a man who relied on his enhanced senses he was amazingly tactile and apparently that trait had transferred over their link.

Teva sighed. "And suddenly it all came back, the loneliness of growing up an only child, the fear of coming home from school thinking I'd find my mother had finally killed herself, the utter lack of a normal childhood. I could hear her voice telling me how much she hated me, how I was'nae good enough, feel the way she used tae pinch me or slap me when I did'nae do exactly as she wished." Her fingers brushed over scars long since faded and the thought drew Logan's attention to them.

"That looks like a burn mark," he said, his voice carrying a growl that spoke of righteous anger.

She looked down at the thin mark on the inside of her forearm, remembered when it was fresh and painful, now just a pale mark that stood out against paler skin. "I left the iron on by accident."

"Jesus." He cradled her head against his shoulder. "I'm sorry, baby, that ain't no way to grow up."

"I sometimes feel like I have nothing tae complain about, knowing what ye went through as a lad."

"Hey." He touched her chin to make her lift her head and look at him. He was a little angry with her, she felt. "I don't ever wanna hear ya say that or think that again, ya hear me? Ya been through hell, Tev, we both have, ain't a contest on who had it worse."

She breathed out through her nose, made a reply out of the sound.

"I'm serious."

"I ken, Logan." She laid her head back down and took in his scent, let smoke and leather and masculinity ground her in the moment, push back the lingering dread. It would remain, waiting, but at least for now she could ignore it. "It took me years tae break free of the torment and the guilt that I was in the wrong, but like I said, it all came flooding back like I only just escaped yesterday."

"Why'd ya shut me out?" he asked.

"I did'nae do it intentionally," she said, sitting up and slightly away from him. When she reached up to run her fingers through her hair she found it tangled so she got up and took her hairbrush from the dresser, a silver-backed antique she'd inherited from her grandmother Mary. "I still have a habit of shutting down when I get stressed, when I get a shock, it's one of the reasons I turned tae alcohol."

"Ya ain't ever alone with me." Logan held out his hand again, this time for the hairbrush which she gladly gave him. It still surprised her sometimes how much he enjoyed doing this for her, yet another intimacy between them. "I can feel how much ya want a drink right now." He gathered her hair in his hand and began brushing from the bottom, working the tangles out there before moving further up. "And how much yer head hurts. Close yer eyes, baby, lemme help ya."

Without hesitation she did as he asked, expecting him to massage her head and neck but not for him to use the link as well. Their astral forms entwined as he pushed calm and love to her, filled her up and pushed out the bad with good, and then he focused on the headache. She could see it in her mind as a black mass that pulsed and twisted with her heartbeat, growing steadily stronger even with the medication she'd taken.

Teva felt him physically touch her head with his hands, rubbing his fingers gently on her temples, down around and under her ears until he was massaging just behind them. The mass continued to pulse but became smaller, gradually, until finally it disappeared and she felt much better.

"What'd ye do?" she asked, rolling her head to stretch her neck when he let her go.

"Pulled it into myself, my healin' factor works better than yours. Felt it for about five seconds an' then it died."

She turned and pressed a kiss to his mouth, closing her eyes and focusing on the feel of him, the rasp of his stubble against her chin, the softer touch of his long sideburns a tickle against her palm. If she'd had his talent of drawing she'd have been able to sketch him without error, the lines worn into his face at eyes and mouth, the ever-present frown between his eyes, his heavy brow and the set of his jaw. Dark brown eyes with a ring of gold that could only be seen up close, betraying nothing without trust, and she could remember when they'd given away nothing to her, when she'd wanted so badly to get inside his head just to know what he was thinking.

Now, all she had to do was think of him and he was there, an open book before her that she never tired of flipping through.

"Thank you," she whispered when they parted. "I'm sorry I did'nae let y'ken what was going on. I should'nae have done that."

"But it's somethin' you'll work on?"

"Aye."

"Then no apology needed." With his hands still cradling her face he kissed her forehead. "Think yer up to goin' back to the party? I won't press ya if ya ain't."

Part of her wanted nothing more than to hole up in their room, change into pajamas and crawl under the covers, avoiding people until the sun came up again. As a girl she would have done just that, because there'd been no one else to go to, no one to worry about her, no family to take into consideration. No one would have cared. But now, she didn't find the prospect of going back a daunting one; waiting for her were people that loved her, as she'd told her father, people who'd support her and listen if she needed a shoulder or an ear.

"Aye, just let me braid my hair."

No one mentioned her disappearance when she reemerged, they merely pulled her back into the flow of things, made their compassion known in their own subtle ways. Just being surrounded by them, combined with Logan's presence, went miles towards helping her recover her balance.

Remy caught her at one point and danced with her, the radio station having been changed to oldies so that now Billie Holiday sang "You Go to My Head."

"I confess I dinnae really ken how to dance aside from shaking my arse," Teva told him.

"Ah, but Remy know how. Ya just follow his lead, _neh_?" He put her hands in the proper place and led her in a slow, measured dance, the epitome of grace and elegance.

It was hard not to watch her feet because she was afraid of stumbling, but she just stumbled more when she paid attention to where her feet were going. "Ah, bugger," she said when she tripped.

"Eyes up here." Remy grinned down at her, the red irises of his eyes flaring in the dark. "It can' be dat hard to look at Remy's handsome face, truly?"

Teva laughed softly. "What's true is that I feel like Ginger Rogers' younger, clumsier sister, while you could give Fred Astaire lessons."

Remy was touched by the comparison but was too smooth to blush, merely dipping his head in acceptance. "Well, Remy'll teach ya some moves, so ya can dance wit' ya husband."

"Logan kens how to dance." She hadn't known that until that moment, picking it up from her mate across the yard talking to Rogue and Hank. He was keeping an eye and mind on her even here. "Which should'nae surprise me, considering everything else he kens. He can take apart any gun in moments and kens more forms of dance than I could even name."

"Lot o' mystery in de little man," Remy agreed. "Do y'all have a special song?"

"He would'nae think so," Teva said. "Are you familiar with Anggun?"

"_Oui_, Remy quite fond o' her music."

She blushed a little. "'Snow on the Sahara.'"

He touched her chin and tipped her face back up. "Why ya blush like dat, _chere_?"

"Sentimentality is'nae something I'm completely comfortable with, Remy." With her mind off her feet she was moving smoothly, gracefully, as Billie segued into The Four Tops' "Reach Out I'll Be There." Her adopted big brother knew about her childhood, knew that she hadn't taken much with her when she'd left her home in Scotland and never looked back; the less she viewed as important, the less she stood to lose.

"Dat's somet'ing you an' Logan have in common, den. He don' hang onta much 'less it's somet'ing extra important."

Teva nodded, still following his lead. "Like the Yashida honor sword."

The roguish Cajun smiled. "An' de guitar pick he keep in his wallet."

"What?"

He laughed at her astonishment. "Oh, girl, ya didn' know?" He threw his head back and laughed again. "_Ma belle_, y'see Remy's point _exactement. _He been carryin' dat pick aroun' since y'all first started dating. Remy only know 'cause it fell out one day."

A smile spread across her face and she ignored Logan's query as to its origin. "I lose so many picks I did'nae even realize one was missing. And it's easy enough to keep hidden." She shook her head ruefully. "I will'nae say anything to him about it, certainly not that you ken."

"It would be a kindness, Teva. Remy don' want de Wolverine --"

He was cut off by a telepathic order from Scott via Emma: _~X-Men in the hangar in 15, we've got a situation. I'll explain enroute.~_

"Just how I wanted to end my evening," Teva groused as she and Remy jogged back towards the mansion with the others.


	3. Chapter 3

Logan was buzzing, body on high alert as he waited in the hangar for the others. Were he anyone else he'd be shifting impatiently or doing some obnoxious repetitive action; instead he was crouched, mentally going through sword forms to keep his mind sharp for the coming encounter, eyes half-closed in concentration. He'd left his cowl off, hanging down his back with no need for it at the moment. It had been something of a relief to him when they'd gone back to their varied uniforms, being more comfortable in something he'd been wearing for years, and it hadn't taken a rocket scientist to realize that black leather made people uncomfortable. As Teva had observed once, it put people in mind of crazed bikers (which yeah, Logan fell under that heading, but not usually when he was doing the superhero thing).

It was yet another variation on his blue-and-yellow togs, just a change of design, and it was as comfortable as his own skin. He'd missed it.

Teva was the next to enter, just a couple minutes behind him, and his eyes rose to run over her body encased in what looked like thick black latex. She'd blatantly refused anything flashy in favor of a color that made her skin look almost translucent, with subtle royal blue accents, and she'd left it unzipped at the neck so that he could see the Celtic knot pendant she wore. A double holster hooked around her shoulders and was secured by a clip under her breasts, placing an XD-45 handgun beneath either arm with the barrels pointing down and back; her utility belt secured another holster with a Glock 18C on her right hip for a cross-draw that was further anchored around her thigh, the belt also holding various implements as well as spare ammunition. A fourth and final gun was strapped to her right ankle over her combat boot, a small Semmerling that was purely backup in case she lost her other firearms.

The entire uniform was lined with bullet-stopping Kevlar, heavier in the torso and lighter around the limbs for ease of movement, the whole suit made of flexible carbon nanotube fibers that resisted tearing and offered protection to her skin. It might seem like overkill but if saved her life, neither one was going to complain.

She was pulling on a pair of fingerless gloves as she came in, flexing her hands to ease the fit. Her own cowl was down leaving her face bare. "Why am I nae surprised you're in here first?"

"I been doin' this longer."

"Stop staring at my tits."

His eyes rose and found her smirk. "Sorry, got distracted."

She _hmmphed_ at him. "Dinnae make me put a hollow-point bullet in your ass, _mo dubh_. You'll heal but it will'nae feel good and y'ken how cranky that makes you."

He snickered and stood up. "Ain't my fault ya look like that, babe. I'm used to ya in cargoes an' t-shirts."

"Just as long as you dinnae get 'distracted' while we're out heroing."

"No chance o' that happenin'." He'd be more distracted by her safety than her chest.

Scott stepped in, followed by Emma and then Kitty, Remy and Rogue. "Get loaded, guys, we're just waiting on Hank and Ororo."

Kitty worked on pre-flight while the rest of the team got situated on the Blackbird, taking up the jump seats behind the pilot and co-pilot stations.

_~See, compared to Frost I'm downright frumpy~_ Teva sent to Logan, strapping in next to him. _~One good yank and her whole top comes off, I swear she's breaking the laws of gravity in that get-up.~_

He gave her a look, noticing the motion sickness patch behind her ear bared by her braided hair before she turned to look at him again. _~Well hey, if that happens, the bad guys'll get distracted. Should make things easier.~_

Teva sniggered, bouncing her leg with unrepressed restlessness. Luckily Scott came on-board with Hank and Ororo, the latter two taking their places with the rest of the team while their leader took his place as pilot. Take-off was smooth and controlled as always, which wasn't enough to put Logan's mind off the fact he was flying, something he hated more than most things in the world.

"Alright," Scott said when they were in the air, angling his chair so he could see all of his troops. "Sit-rep: there's a halfway house in Brooklyn that caters to mutants, one that the professor works closely with. We got a call half an hour ago about a disturbance that sounded a lot like our old friend Deadpool and at least one another unidentified player. Communication was cut off before we could get the rest of the story and Emma and Xavier was unable to get more telepathically."

"Are we looking at some sort of hostage situation?" Ororo asked. "It _is_ Deadpool we are talking about, after all."

Scott shook his head. "That's unclear at this point. Luckily the halfway house wasn't full, with maybe ten residents and five staff. The residents have to sign a waiver saying they won't use their powers while on the premises but there's no way to tell what they'd do in a crisis, so just keep in mind they might panic and attack us and try to avoid hurting them. Our goal is to neutralize the threat of anyone who shouldn't be there and, if we can't, to get the residents to safety."

"So who's Deadpool?" Teva asked Logan when Scott finished, leaning a little closer to him in his seat beside her so that their legs touched.

"Mercenary," he replied. "Went through Weapon X, later than me, they actually took my healin' factor and injected him with it so he's as hard to kill as me. Likes guns and swords, never shuts the hell up, doesn't really have any problems if bystanders get in the way." He pushed calm along their link because her nervousness was starting to affect him. "Oh, and he's pretty much nutty as squirrel shit."

"You have to be a special kind of crazy to dress up and do what we do," Teva replied. She stopped bouncing her leg and took a deep breath. "I ask myself every time I do this what on earth I'm thinking and wonder if I've finally gone off the deep end."

Logan put a hand on her knee. "The day ya stop askin' yerself that, the day ya start enjoyin' it, that's the day ya need to stop."

She covered her hand with his and closed her eyes, resting her head against the back of the seat. "I'll keep that in mind."

They spent the rest of the short flight in silence, not even speaking over their link, which was fine with Logan. He liked to remain focused as he went into a confrontation and he could feel that his intensity was leaking over to Teva, something that had begun happening when she'd become a full member of the X-Men and started going on missions. It meant she was more vigilant and had the benefit of his experience, and he found he couldn't complain about that side effect. Anything that upped her chances of survival was okay in his book.

When the Blackbird landed they left their civilian lives behind, adopting their codenames. Wolverine pulled his cowl on, out of the corner of his eye he noticed his mate pull hers on, leaving only the lower half of her face visible and her braid free through a hole in the neck. He heard her crack her knuckles under the sound of Cyclops' voice giving final orders, pressing his desire for as little bloodshed as possible.

* * *

Teva snorted at Cyclops' insistence on minimal violence, wondering if he'd truly paid so little attention to his Canadian teammate; she knew he hadn't and that it was just wishful thinking on their leader's part. She couldn't fault him for it, as she'd prefer less violence, but sometimes she saw Wolverine's way of thinking as the more expedient of the two. Of course their telepathic link meant that she picked up his feral nature and behaved a little more like him, with more ruthlessness and less hesitation.

She'd chosen the codename Marten after Remy had suggested it, martens being a close relative to wolverines in the weasel family. While she may not have had the same physical force her mate did, she was by no means unable to defend herself even if she found herself without the use of her telepathy or empathy.

After lessons she'd become much more proficient with firearms and she now carried a machine pistol (the 18C) in addition to the semiautomatic XD-45s, the automatic with an expanded 33-round clip requiring much more control; the first time she'd used the Glock she'd nearly hurt herself with the kickback, and even now if she wasn't careful she could sprain her wrist, which is why she now wore leather bracers on her wrists to keep them stable. She had one of the XD-45s in her right hand held at her side with the safety on and a round in the chamber.

She followed Wolverine, her designated partner, keeping the same crouching stance he did as they moved across the roof and down the fire escape on the back of the building. There was nothing in the alley save dumpsters and random garbage, a beat-up Honda parked near the far end that Marten quickly checked for occupancy. _~Clear~_ she sent back to him. _~Whole alley is.~_

Wolverine nodded sharply from the other end where he was checking several steel drums. His sense of smell was telling him the same thing her telepathy told her, she read, though he got the worse part of the deal by also taking in the scents of rotting trash and other assorted disgusting things. Sometimes she didn't understand how he could live with his enhanced senses.

They both looked up simultaneously at a shadow moving overhead, Marten lifting her gun to track it as it sailed over their heads from the building the Blackbird had landed on to the next. She shook her head to indicate she didn't recognize the mental signature.

_~Let's move~_ he told her, taking off without waiting for her at a loping pace that she kept up with easily after months of training, though she didn't move with quite the grace that he did. The halfway house was five blocks away from the 'Bird to aid in keeping the X-Men's arrival concealed and even though they'd come in under stealth there was still the possibility they could be seen; obviously that had already happened if that shadow had been any indication, not being one of their teammates. Wolverine and Marten moved down the back alleys avoiding the pools of light that created islands in the darkness, covering each other as they switched off on who took point and who watched their rear as if they'd been doing this for years instead of months.

There were no more sightings of the other as they made their way to the alley behind the target building. Marten tried the back door and found it open, questing ahead and finding no one waiting for them while also sending calming suggestions to the inhabitants. She could feel two that were resisting it, one actively pushing her out while the other possessed a mind so slippery she couldn't even touch it. Behind her she heard Wolverine scenting the air and whatever he smelled had him growling low.

"Deadpool," he said quietly, then he swore. "And Wild Child."

The tone of his voice and his emotions told her he wasn't happy, angry at the merc they knew was there but also at the partner he'd just identified; he knew them both from his past. "Wild Child's another feral, darlin', he's gonna know we're here."

Marten responded by switching the semi-automatic to her left hand and unholstering the 18C with her right. "He felt my telepathy. Healing factor?" she asked.

"Yeah. Stronger 'n mine, he ain't got adamantium." He stopped prowling long enough to stand next to her. "How many ya readin'?"

She closed her eyes, shutting out sight and reaching out with her mind. "20, all told, in the building. 22, now, Storm and Cyclops just came in the front." She jerked at the sudden outbreak of violence in the next room and her eyes shot open again. "Shit! Move!" she shouted, hurtling into the dark corridor ahead as rapid gunfire sounded at the other end, screaming and chaos filling her ears.

A blond man done up in what could only be described as bondage gear flew past her with the power of Storm's wind, his body slamming into the wall but the blow didn't put him down. He crouched as he slid to the floor and when he looked up his eyes were on Marten, a downright evil grin on his vulpine face with sharp teeth bared.

"Hello, cutie," he said. With one leap he was in the air coming for her with clawed hands extended and only by sheer force of will was she able to switch the safety off the gun in her left hand and squeeze off a couple rounds into his chest. He jerked with the force of hollow point bullets hitting him and remaining inside of his body instead of exiting through the back; they were designed to do that, to expand upon impact and cause more damage to the target rather than going through-and-through, and when facing someone who could heal the wounds it was a good asset to have. It didn't stop him, which she hadn't expected it to, and she had a sudden flashback to coming up against Sabretooth in the Weapon X facility. It was a strong memory that she shoved down violently before it could overtake her.

Up close she could see the piercings in his face and in his ears, the latter pointed at the tip like a cat's, and his eyes were the same feral amber of Creed's. She wondered briefly if all ferals were like that, even Logan's eyes held that hint of orange-gold in the right light, but she didn't have much time to reflect on it.

"You've got cat breath," she snarled at him, opening up with the 18C in his face. The controlled burst made blood splatter back on her, across the front of her uniform and face, as he jerked back and fell, twitching on the ground. She stepped over his body and looked around the room trying to take in as much detail as she could in as short a time possible.

Storm was gone, moving down the corridor Wolverine and Marten had come down with her cape flowing behind her. "The residents are down the back stairs," Marten told her over the comm in their ears.

Cyclops was grappling with a woman with blue skin and white hair, forced to use hand-to-hand instead of the long-range power of his optic blasts but he was equally capable with both forms of warfare.

Wolverine snarled something and out of the corner of her eye she saw a blur of red and black and silver deal him a blow that opened him up across the chest, and when he turned to fight back another took him across the muscles of his back, the wounds bad enough he hit the floor on one knee as his healing factor kicked in to take care of the damage. It was quick but it wasn't instant and he'd be down for a few moments.

Marten lifted her left hand and fired over his head now that he was down and his opponent stopped moving long enough to remain stationary. The man staring back at her was encased entirely in a suit of red and black with white over his eyes, one _katana_ strapped to his back and the other in his left hand, a bulky submachine gun in his right, and if she wasn't mistaken there was white writing on the firearm. The bullets took him in the chest and she thought she saw surprise on his face behind the mask before he used Wolverine as a springboard and flipped over him like a gymnast, aiming his gun at Marten and firing.

She crouched under the spray and had a moment to admire the guy's form before she was firing at him again with the Glock. He didn't seem terribly bothered by the bullets that hit him, and then he surprised the hell out of her by talking.

"Nice shot back there, by the way," he said, circling her and spinning his sword in his hand. "Didn't expect that from a girl, not even one who's boinking the rug back there. I mean, it's not like you gain skill in fighting through osmosis or something."

"Deadpool, I'm guessing?"

"Oh, she's heard of me!" He sounded inordinately pleased and gave her a little bow that wasn't entirely mocking, like he was genuinely happy she'd heard of him. "So did you get sick of being a rock star or do you still do that as a day job?"

Marten frowned and tried not to be put off by the steady patter of words. "Can we maybe pay attention to the fight at hand?" she asked. "If that's alright with you, that is?"

He nodded his head. "Sounds good to me. _En garde_!" He rushed her faster than she expected and she put up her arm to block him, felt the pressure of his blade against her forearm. "Hey, no fair, that's supposed to cut you!"

She grinned at him and fired in his face. "Sorry, bub, my armor's better than yours." She gave him another few bullets in the face until her gun clicked on empty and she jacked the spent magazine out, replaced the XD-45 and put a new magazine in the Glock.

By that point Wolverine was up again and he kicked Deadpool in the ribs, hard enough to send him flying into the far wall. "He won't stay down long, though I'm kinda surprised ya held yer own against 'im."

"Your vote of confidence is overwhelming. Maybe he was distracted by my tits," she replied sarcastically.

"I totally was," Deadpool gurgled from his place on the floor.

"The fuck are ya doin' here, 'Pool?" Wolverine asked him, crouching and holding his claws out at the fallen merc. "Tell me or the lady here gets to see just how ugly ya are."

Deadpool grimaced and sat up slowly. "Recruitment, what else? You recognized Wild Child over there, an' that's Copycat," he said, gesturing to the white haired woman who was unconscious on the floor. "Maverick'd be here but he said no."

Marten heard Wolverine's sharp intake of breath. "Mav? What about Wraith?"

The merc shook his head. "Nah, you know him, he wouldn't come back, either."

"Are they puttin' Weapon X back together?"

Marten jerked at that, staring first at Wolverine and then at Deadpool.

Deadpool nodded. "Yeah, wanna come back, old buddy?"

"Where's Vic?"

"Not here," Marten said, having scanned for him as soon as Deadpool mentioned Weapon X. "I cannae feel him."

"They're keeping him on a short leash," Deadpool told them. He reached up and scratched his chin, then his head. "You know how he is."

Wolverine growled.

"Were you after someone in particular here?" Marten asked. Up close to him she could see the writing on his gun: _How's my shooting? Call 1-800-Ded-Pool_ with the 'a' in 'Dead' scratched out.

Deadpool coughed, bright blood staining his mask, and he pulled it up over his chin. She could see that his skin was scarred heavily beneath the blood. "Thought Kane was here but he wasn't, then Wild Child decided to have some fun. He's as bad as Sabes when he wants to be." His head cocked to the side. "Oh, yeah, Wild Child's awake, by the way."

Marten was pushed forward, her head being forced into the floor repeatedly, painfully, until she felt her left cheekbone crack. She lay there in a daze and listened to the sound of gunfire and metal on metal as Deadpool and Wolverine went at it again; she struggled onto hands and knees and watched her blood drip onto the floor before she was grabbed again, trying not to puke.

Wild Child spun her around, snapping his teeth in her face. "Think it'll piss off Logan if I kill you?" he snarled at her.

She blinked at him, trying to think past the pain. Behind her Wolverine called her name. She shook her head to clear it and sense began to return.

"Think ye can do it before your head goes boom?" she replied, reaching for both of his ears and pumping kinetic energy into the metal hoops there until they glowed purple. She had a moment to see the surprise on his face and then she was blown back with the force of the explosion, her head thudding against the floor when she landed. Stars burst in her vision at the impact.

Wolverine appeared over her, his cowl pulled off as he checked her pulse. "Can ya mimic off my healin' factor?" he asked. Under normal circumstances she could, using his proximity to strengthen hers, but he was really asking if she had the consciousness to do it.

"Need skin," she got out, the act of speaking painful with her broken cheekbone. He stripped off his glove and linked his bare fingers with hers, and with her mind she reached out down their link, taking enough to knit the break back together, ease the force of the concussion. She felt him stroke her head with his other hand. Even with the aid she felt weak and unconsciousness ate at the corners of her vision, her entire head throbbing worse than it had with her earlier migraine.

"S'ok," Wolverine told her. "We're gettin' outta here. Just take it easy."

The last thing she was aware of before she closed her eyes was the voices of her teammates and her mate's arms lifting her.


	4. Chapter 4

During the flight home and after, Logan could feel Teva drifting in and out of consciousness, floating and sinking but always in pain. She never mimicked enough from him to augment her healing factor and heal herself completely, only ever just enough to mend what needed mending and letting her body do the rest. He found he couldn't force it on her, that only she had the ability to engage her mimicry, and all he could do was be glad that she could do this at all. But that didn't mean he didn't get frustrated with her for not doing what he felt she needed to do; they'd had words about it in the past and likely would again in the future.

After she'd been checked out and given the all clear by Hank, Logan carried her to their room, going through the methodical process of removing her weapons and making sure there were no bullets in the chambers, taking out the clips and setting them aside near their respect weapons; he could clean them himself but she'd get angry with him for that. She took great pride in taking care of her weapons. Then he removed her holsters and began stripping her uniform off, struggling against her almost completely dead weight to remove the skin-tight material. He counted the bullets embedded in the armor, six in the torso both front and back, one just below where her zipper had stopped, another two in the right thigh. He sent a silent thanks to Reed Richards and Tony Stark, who'd designed the armor for the Fantastic Four and the Avengers, for saving her life more than once. Her cowl had been pulled off on the way home to check the wound.

She almost surfaced a few times even under the influence of the painkillers Hank had given her, but after he cleaned the blood from her face and tucked her in wearing only her underwear, she subsided and remained asleep.

He sat on the side of the bed looking at her. The left side of her face was black and blue from the broken cheekbone, the bruising circling up around her eye though it was already less as her healing factor did its work. That was also part of what was keeping her asleep, it worked much more slowly but took much more energy than Logan's did, and even his own was still taking care of some of the internal damage from the fight with Deadpool. After Wild Child had attacked Teva again the merc had come after him and stabbed him more than once; Logan could feel his guts still knitting back together and his spine felt like it was burning, the knife having nicked him there more than once. Deadpool knew where to stab to get the most damage.

Leaving the connection open between them he left their room, still in his uniform, and headed down to the War Room to debrief with the team. The rest of them were also still in uniform though Scott had switched out his visor for his ruby quartz glasses and Ororo's cape was folded on the table in front of her.

"How is she?" the African goddess asked when he entered and took a seat next to her.

"She's out," he answered. "Still in pain but she's comin' out of it slowly. Figured it'd be better to let her sleep, she don't know anything I don't."

Scott nodded, having picked up the conversation. "That's alright, Logan. You spoke to Deadpool?"

"Yeah." Logan slouched in his chair, wincing in pain as his body continued to repair itself. "The blue chick you were fightin', that's Vanessa Carlyle, Copycat. Ya already know Wild Child. Those three together were part o' Weapon X after my time, an' 'Pool mentioned that Creed was workin' fer 'em, too." He crossed his arms over his chest. "There were a couple other guys used to be on Team X along with me an' Vic, Kestral and Maverick, 'but 'Pool said they hadn't agreed to come back."

Rogue frowned from her seat. "So then what in the hell were they doin' at some random halfway house? Lookin' for someone else to join their crew?"

"They were lookin' fer another old member, Kane. He's been off the grid for years now an' musta popped up for them to be searchin' fer 'im."

"And what about you?" Ororo asked. "Certainly you would be an asset to that group, with the training you have undergone."

"He asked if I wanted to come back but he was only half-serious. He knows I'm done with that part o' my life." Logan shrugged. "God only knows what the department's got them doin' an' I don't want a part o' it." Several floors up he felt Teva shift, kept himself from smiling when she reached for his pillow and hugged it.

Emma gave a disdainful sniff and tossed her hair. "Luckily there was no one hurt by those lunatics. The residents of the house were safely kept below in something akin to a panic room though not everyone got inside before the mouth breathers showed up. Several of them were injured in trying to help their fellow mutants."

"I'm just glad that we didn't have to deal with any friendly fire," Kitty spoke up. "It's hard enough sometimes when it's just the team, it would have gone much differently if those other mutants had been involved with the fight."

"Did anyone else see anything? Hear anything?" Scott turned deliberately to the team who'd stayed outside, Hank who'd remained with the 'Bird, Remy and Rogue who'd circled the few blocks around the halfway house.

"Not a t'ing, _mon ami,_" Remy replied. "Was as quiet as a church." Rogue nodded her agreement with a wrinkled nose; clearly she'd been spoiling for a fight and been denied.

Their leader sighed and shrugged. "I guess that's it, then. If any of you think of anything, make sure you let me or Ororo know. Otherwise, you're dismissed."

It was obvious he was looking for more but Logan wasn't too terribly concerned about helping in that area. He was more worried than he'd let on about what was going on with Weapon X, knowing that whatever they were involved in couldn't be good, it never was. They pretty much specialized in destroying as much as they possibly could for their own gain, or the gain of whoever was paying them the most money, and anyone who got in their way or tried to stop them stood a pretty good chance of disappearing off the face of the earth. He had a feeling it was a question of 'when?' and not 'if?' before they came after him to forcefully offer him a place on the team.

He went back to his room and checked on Teva before stripping, his uniform going in the trash (he honestly didn't remember the last time he'd come back with it intact), and then taking a shower that left his skin temporarily pink. When he felt close to human again he washed his hair quickly and got out. He wasn't planning on going anywhere so he only pulled on a pair of loose pants.

His cell was on the dresser and he snagged it before going out onto their small terrace, leaving the door halfway open in case Teva needed something. He still had John Wraith's phone number and he called it, not really expecting an answer; sure enough it went to voicemail and he left a terse message that pretty much guaranteed Wraith would call him back. A second call was made, this one to Christopher Nord, who'd gone by the codename Maverick. When that went to voicemail, too, he left another message and then hung up, cursing. He hated feeling useless with no leads to track down, nothing to do except wait and hope one of them got back to him, and that was assuming either one of them had more info than he did now.

It wasn't his usual way. Under other circumstances he'd take off and hunt down any and all leads, even the ones he knew were slim chances, if it meant a resolution. Especially where Weapon X was concerned. After what had happened in the facility where he'd regained his memories he'd begun wondering when they'd pop up again, knowing it was only a matter of time before they realized he'd triggered the failsafe. Chances are they'd be looking to bring him back and in put him through reprogramming again now that he knew more about what had been done to him and had more of an idea on just who had done it, though to be honest he was still in the dark about a lot of it. Just because he remembered being experimented on and the faces of those who'd done it didn't mean he knew who was actually behind it, who'd funded and sponsored it; he was pretty sure that info was buried deep in government files somewhere, not having seen the light of day in decades.

He had responsibilities now, not just to his team but to the woman he was going to marry. She could understand and appreciate his loner nature but she'd made it clear in no uncertain terms that he was no longer by himself but rather part of a mated pair, and mates took care of each other. If one was in need the other one stepped up and did what was necessary, including smacking them upside the head and setting them straight if they faltered; she'd never agree to let him go off without her, not because he couldn't take care of himself but because she'd proven time and again she wasn't weak, that she could remain by his side without falling. He remembered their argument before going up to Canada nearly two years ago and how she'd asked him to either accept her or let her go.

It hadn't been much of a choice, no matter the fallout afterwards. Now he could no more deny her place in his life than he could deny his feral nature, and that part of him wouldn't let him shut out his mate. They were intertwined so strongly now it would be a type of death to lose her.

Logan looked out at the grounds of the mansion, easily able to see everything even without the lightening sky of approaching dawn. Not even twelve hours ago he'd proposed to Teva and he could still feel the overwhelming joy of her agreement, just as potent now, with the slightest undercurrent of loss trailing behind at the memories of Mariko and Itsu. He still loved them, a part of his heart would always remain buried with them in Japan, and he hoped they'd be happy for him and approve of the woman he'd chosen. While the three might be as different as night and day they had one thing in common: they'd shown him there was hope for a man like him.

He went back in and shut the door on the world waking up outside, adjusting to the quiet sounds of his bedroom. A fan on low sat on the dresser blowing towards the bed, rustling the sheets as it passed over them. Teva's soft breathing was the only other sound until he walked towards her and the wooden floor creaked beneath his feet, and as he climbed in after her she made a snuffling noise that turned into a protest when he tried to take his pillow back from her.

"Mine," she muttered, clutching at it even as he pried her fingers open.

"C'mon, baby," he said softly, reaching out to stroke her unbruised cheek. She nuzzled against his hand with a happy sound that never failed to make him smile. "That's it."

Teva relinquished the pillow even as she reached for him, automatically snuggling in against his body when he lay down beside her. It was still so strange to him that anyone would actively seek his touch, his companionship, need him so much that they'd reach for him in the midst of vulnerable sleep.

"Hi," she said sleepily.

"Hey. How're ya feelin'?" he asked, shifting to get comfortable without moving her too much.

She made a grumbling noise. "M' face hurts."

"I know, baby." His arm automatically came around to cradle her, his hand resting on her hip. "You can mimic more from me, if ya need to." He knew she wouldn't but he had to offer.

"S'ok. Jus' need sleep." Already she was falling back into unconsciousness, roused only by his presence and her need to seek comfort in him before she could rest again. She always woke up if he came to bed after her, unable to settle down completely without him nearby even with their link letting her know where he was; she'd explained to him, not long after they'd first met, that touch was painful to her because it could trigger her telempathy without her consent, and that combined with a physically-unaffectionate childhood had left her wary of contact. Only as an adult had she learned to accept touch again and now she almost craved it, at least where Logan was concerned, so that she was always touching him when he was in the room with her.

His animal side found it couldn't complain because it craved touch, more as a need to mark her with his scent than anything else, but animals were always more comfortable with casual touch than humans were. Mammals that traveled in packs often slept in big piles for warmth and the safety of the young in the middle.

Logan's mind wandered to children and the thought of having them with Teva. There'd been apprehension from her when Remy had mentioned kids and they hadn't talked about it yet, a reluctance he didn't know the cause of. He'd figured they'd talk about it after the party but of course that hadn't happened, with first the fight in the city and then her coming home injured. Likely it had to do with her abusive upbringing and fear that she'd be a bad mother, which couldn't be farther from the truth if her interactions with the kids at the Institute were any indication, and she just didn't have a mean bone in her body when it came to kids. She wasn't built that way.

And he honestly wasn't sure if he wanted kids, anyway. As a carrier of the X-gene it was exponentially more possible he'd produce an X-positive child with a female mutant, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to put that kind of burden on a child in a world that was increasingly hostile towards their kind. And the kind of life he led was dangerous enough without bringing an innocent into the equation; Teva could make her own choices on being with him, weigh the risks and benefits and decide if that was a road she wanted to go down. She'd made it clear she was with him for the long haul no matter what that meant.

He'd really never had urges for children, at least not until he'd found a mate. It wasn't until he'd married Itsu that they'd actively tried to have a baby and while he was overjoyed, he'd have been content with just her as lover and companion. With Mariko they hadn't even gotten to the point where children would become an issue. He wasn't really sure of his own skills as a caretaker, his own ability to bring up a child and direct them on a path of good decisions and success. He knew he'd love them but he was prone to distancing himself for long periods of time when he felt his hold on his beast slipping, and the thought of subjecting a child to that made his stomach lurch.

Teva shifted in his arms and sighed, a sound that indicated she'd drifted off again. She was so beautiful, he thought, even with the livid bruising on her face, the kind of women men like him didn't get chances with. He wouldn't call himself ugly because that would mean he actively paid attention to his own features when really, he just knew he looked like he'd been through it all and lived to tell the tale. He was short, hairy, gruff to the point of being an asshole most of the time, with nothing to offer a woman except strong hands and a heart he was constantly surprised to find he still had. He'd give all that and more to the woman who agreed to be his mate.

His fingers found the end of her braid and he played with it, brushing the strands against his skin. In the dark he could still easily see the color, the deep auburn that blazed with fire in the sun, a holdover from the days when the Vikings had conquered the northernmost end of the country where she was born. Her face held that wild nobility with high, sharp cheekbones and a full, wide mouth that always seemed on the verge of humor, as if she knew some great joke but didn't feel like sharing it with the world. The straight line of her nose was ruined only by a broken nose received in a Danger Room session before she'd gained her mimicking power, leaving her with an injury that did absolutely nothing to take away from her beauty.

Her hand twitched where it lay against his bare chest and only stilled when he placed his hand over it, resting over his heart inside its metal cage. Bit by bit she was luring him down into sleep with her, a silken pull he found himself powerless against especially when he felt the rub of her body against his on the astral plane. Apparently she wasn't so far gone she couldn't enjoy him there.

A grin appeared on his face as he gave himself over to her.


	5. Chapter 5

Teva rifled through the rack of clothing in front of her, wrinkling her nose at the scent of new, unwashed fabric. Sometimes she really hated mimicking Logan's enhanced senses, something that happened a lot without her even realizing it; she'd have to make sure to avoid the perfume counter when they passed by it on their way out into the mall or it would be instant migraine, and that was the last thing she wanted that day. She was out with friends and, as much as she hated shopping, female companionship was something she missed from her days in Antiheroine.

"Where's Jubilee?" Ororo asked, perusing a selection of tops.

Teva snorted. "Off looking at shiny baubles, no doubt. I swear the lass is like a magpie and will go and hoard her stash when we get home."

Kitty laughed at that. "You guys have no idea, really, I had to share a room with her when we were kids. I never had any room for my stuff by the time she was done."

Ororo smiled, shaking her head. "I suppose she will turn up when she has decided she is hungry. How I envy that girl's metabolism some days."

"Oh, tell me about it," Teva groaned, a hand to her abdomen. "Even with the healing factor I feel like I need to obsessively work out or I will'nae fit into my uniform. That thing is merciless, slimming color or no."

"Are you kidding me?" Kitty asked. "At least you've got hips, I'll forever look like a twelve-year-old with no butt."

Teva twisted around as if she could see her own behind that way. "Aye, well, if I could give you some of this, I would. Even if Logan is rather fond of it." He really was attached to it, enough to make regular remarks to that effect.

She was a little shocked at the compliment from Kitty. Their relationship usually only survived through the connection of the man between them, they'd never shared anything beyond that, which made Teva wonder if it was jealousy on the other woman's part. She would never come between them and their long-established bond, if anything she found herself a little envious at it and the sheer history the two had, sharing experiences Teva had no knowledge of. Kitty had gotten to see Logan's evolution from the gruff loner of the team to the man he was today.

"Are you seeing anything you like?" Ororo asked.

Teva shook her head. "Nah, it's more of the usual. I dinnae want that."

The weather goddess hooked her arm with the Scottish woman's so they could walk together. "You want to turn his head, make him see you as he has not before. I will make it my personal mission to see that you accomplish this goal."

Teva almost blushed and was glad for the strength of her shields or she'd be leaking gooey thoughts all over the place. Ororo was the sister she'd never had but always wanted, someone to commiserate with and share secrets with, someone who'd listen when she needed an ear. And for all Teva was comfortable with her own boyish style of clothing, it was hard not to be envious of a woman who always looked so effortlessly put-together. Ororo was the epitome of natural beauty and every other woman looked like a peasant in her presence.

They caught up with Jubilee at the jewelry counter where she'd indeed dropped a small fortune, but she was happy. The foursome went out into the mall proper, window shopping and going into stores only when something caught someone's eye. Teva saw a few possibilities that she stored away in her mind for later comparison but she felt out of her league as she'd never shopped for anything even remotely formal.

They were coming up on a video game store and she and Jubilee saw it at the same moment, Teva reacting by groaning and covering her face while Jubilee started laughing: in front of them was a cardboard cutout of Teva from when she'd been in Antiheroine, maybe six years ago now, looking younger and more naive than she'd ever thought possible; it was an advertisement for the upcoming version of Guitar Hero and she hadn't expected to see anything for it for another couple months at least. She just thanked her lucky stars they'd needed her permission to use her likeness though she wished they'd chosen a photo from when she'd looked less ... grungy.

"I think I'd be incredibly creeped out if I ran into one of these of myself," Kitty said, cocking her head to the side as she looked at it.

"Are you a playable avatar?" Jubilee asked. "Please, please tell me you are."

Teva nodded and tried to ignore the cutout. "I'm unlockable, apparently."

Jubilee pumped her fist in the air. "That is so freakin' _cool_! Does Logan know?"

"Aye, it was a condition, I would'nae have done it if he had'nae been okay with it. He thinks it's funny."

"Logan has an odd sense of humor," Ororo said. "Then again, he does not seem terribly bothered knowing that there are t-shirts with his alter ego on them."

"Didn't all the Avengers end up with their own merchandise?" Kitty asked as they moved on.

"I am the proud owner of Spider-Man underoos," Jubilee declared. "I think he's the only one who got underwear, though. I always wondered why that was, it seems kind of weird."

"There were Iron Man panties in Paris for a while," Teva replied. "It did'nae last very long, Tony does'nae exactly have a great reputation with the women. Personally I like my Captain America jersey, I dinnae feel quite so strange wearing that."

They came up on Nordstrom's and trooped in, and almost immediately Teva found herself drawn to a silk outfit of royal blue. It consisted of flowing, wide-legged pants that gave the illusion of a skirt and a form-fitting, sleeveless top with silver embroidery in something resembling Celtic knotwork along the V of the neckline. Unlike anything else she'd seen she knew she wanted to try this on and quickly found her size and took the items into the dressing room.

The reaction of her shopping companions told her this was it. "You look stunning," Ororo said, pulling her over to the three-way mirror. "That color is perfect with your skin and hair, and with a little make-up Logan will never know what hit him."

"I've got an idea for your hair," Kitty said, "as long as you don't mind it being braided."

"Thank you," Teva said, touched by the offer. "Any suggestions on shoes? That _are'nae_ high heels," she added, heading Jubilee off at the pass. "I hate shoe shopping more than I hate shopping for clothes, there's a reason I stick with combat boots and Chucks."

That search took a little longer and, by the time they'd found a pair of flat sandals that laced up the calf, it was decided that lunch was in order. They reconvened at a table in the middle of the food court which, luckily, wasn't too busy.

Jubilee chattered away and the rest of them were happy to let her do it if it kept her out of trouble, even if some of the topics she chose were worse than others, and it wasn't until she brought up Logan and Teva having kids that the mood changed.

"Are you alright?" Ororo asked, noticing that Teva had stopped eating.

"Logan and I have'nae had a chance to talk about it yet and I'm a little afraid to bring it up." She pushed away her food, folding her arms protectively over her abdomen; what little she'd gotten into her stomach was beginning to feel as if it would come back up. "I dinnae even ken if I can have kids, 'Roro. My mother had quite a few miscarriages and I was really a fluke; her mother had similar problems, though she had a few more children, and her other daughters never had any children. I never went to a doctor over it but I never wanted to ken."

Ororo touched her arm, giving her a squeeze. "I do not wish to add to your dismay, but it is also very rare for two mutants to be able to conceive, it was a ... source of contention between Forge and I. Are children something you wish for?"

Teva shrugged. "That's just it, I dinnae ken. I ken what kind of life mutants can expect and I dinnae think that I'd want to bring a child into that. And being an X-Man means I might not make it back one day. There are just too many what-ifs." She looked at the other three women, all who had known her mate longer than she had. "Has he ever said one way or the other to any of you how he feels about kids?"

Kitty nodded. "He's always felt uncomfortable around them, even when they're older, I know it took forever for him to get used to me and Jubes here. I think he doesn't know what to do with them, how to handle them, but with the way he spoke to me once about Itsu makes me think part of him would want that. There's really no way to know without asking him, y'know?"

"Aye, I ken that's what I need to do. The thought just makes me sick to my stomach."

Ororo declared that enough shopping had been done, though Teva insisted she was fine and didn't want to cut the trip short just because she was upset. Still, it touched her that they rallied around her and got her home. Kitty made a date with her to give her hair a dry-run and then she was on her own, feeling aimless despite knowing what she needed to do.

The mansion felt deserted with everyone out on a weekend, though she found Hank and Remy going at it in the gym playing racquetball, and Rogue was running sims in the Danger Room with some of the junior members of the X-Men; Teva sat up in the control booth for a few moments watching Hisako being subtly prepped for a leadership role over her peers. She was yet another of Logan's 'strays' no matter her circumstances in coming to the school, and they had a strange relationship due to his years spent in Japan and her family history. It had been insanely amusing the first time Hisako had discovered Logan spoke her language and her grumblings were fully understood.

Her cellphone rang, Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Simple Man" telling her it was Aardwulf.

"Aard, where the hell have you been, you sexy bastard?" she asked by way of greeting.

"Breakin' hearts, sweetie, an' kickin' asses." His Southern drawl filled the line like honey, always a welcome sound. "And I hear you're off the market come next Saturday. That ugly little Canuck o' yours finally decided to make an honest woman out of ya?"

She snorted and switched the phone from one hand to the other as she went outside, shoving her other hand in her pocket. "Well, news certainly does travel fast."

"I heard it on VH1 'fore I got the invite."

"Oh gods." She groaned, her hand reemerging to cover her face. "Sometimes I forget how much of a circus my life used to be. Even now I dinnae turn on the telly more than I have to but at least things had started to die down after I got kicked out of the band."

"That's the life, Teva, ya knew that goin' in. Just be glad ya ain't got paparazzi followin' ya around like you're J-Lo or somethin'."

"My butt is'nae that big."

Aardwulf laughed. "Nah, but it's nice. Shame you're off the market."

"More's the pity, Aard, you'll nae get another chance with me."

"I'll die a bereft man, then." She could imagine him with a hand over his heart as if stricken and the image made her grin. "I'm happy for ya, honey, I really am. I knew as soon as I saw the two of ya together I was lookin' at somethin' most of the rest of us ain't ever gonna be lucky enough to find. I'd be honored to be there for ya on your big day."

"Thanks, Aard. If you need a place to stay we've got more than enough room here at the mansion."

He snorted. "Right, 'cause I wanna be around a buncha kids. Thanks for the offer, Ginger, but I'll make arrangements elsewhere. I'll be in on Friday."

"I'll see you then." The smile remained on her face even after they said their good-byes, even as she realized her feet were taking her towards the boathouse and the unmistakable mental signature of her mate.

She thought back to the first time she'd seen him here, not too long after coming to the Institute. She'd felt raw and vulnerable then, too, for different reasons, and she'd just begun to realize she had feelings for him. She remembered how he'd pushed her away and was glad that things had changed, for the better, and now it was she who was avoiding what was in her heart.

"Hey, baby," he greeted her, tugging her down to sit next to him on the edge of the dock. "Have fun with the girls?"

"Aye, found what I was looking for."

"Then why ya feel like yer world's comin' down around ya?" He wasn't the type to let her ignore her feelings, especially when he could feel them like ants marching along his skin. "Talk to me, Tev. Ya haven't said much since the night yer dad called."

That was another thing she'd deliberately not been thinking of. Her mother had been buried some hours after she'd regained full consciousness following the mission in Brooklyn. "We have'nae talked about kids," she said finally. "About us having them."

He didn't say anything for a moment. "Are kids somethin' ya wanna have?"

Teva told him, haltingly, what was on her mind, physically pulling away from him, folding in on herself as if expecting a negative reaction; it was something she hadn't done for months now, hadn't felt the need to do. "And 'Roro told me it's nearly impossible for two mutants to conceive, anyway," she finished.

Logan was silent for a long moment, and she could feel him thinking. "We lead dangerous lives, we never know what's gonna happen when we go on a mission. An' me ... I got this animal in me an' sometimes I gotta let it out, gotta run. It ain't fair to you when I do it an' I don't want a kid thinkin' I hate 'em." He reached for her hand and she took it but still didn't look at him. "Even if we beat the odds, those same odds are high we'd have a kid with an active X-gene an' that's somethin' else I don't wanna burden a child with."

He touched her face then, made sure she was meeting his eyes when next he spoke. "Don't think less o' yerself just 'cause ya can't have kids. Even if I wanted some, we could always adopt, ain't like I'm such a stranger to that concept."

Teva couldn't help the smile that made her lips tremble. "You do seem to have a penchant for collecting strays, so to speak." She breathed out. "I've been making myself sick over this, I kept thinking... I know how joyful ye were when ye found out Itsu was pregnant, how much ye loved that ye were going tae be a father."

His gaze was intense, so much so she wanted to look away but found she couldn't. "The man married to Itsu ain't the man yer marryin', Tev, he's been dead a long time. I love you, I want you, ain't nothin' in the world's gonna change my mind and I'm a right stubborn bastard when I wanna be."

"Aye, well, ye are that." He could be a Scot he was so hard headed.

He kissed her forehead and pulled her in against his body. "How ya doin', otherwise? 'Bout the situation with yer parents, I mean."

She shrugged. "I'm getting over it. Having him call the other night was like tearing open a wound I thought long scarred over and I thought it was going to eat at me more than it has." She rested her head on his shoulder. "I cannae change what happened and in a lot of ways I made my peace with them a long time ago. I've got people and things more important tae focus on than a woman 3,000 miles away and six feet under."

"Now that's the Teva Lawson I know." He cleared his throat. "Speakin' o which, I got somethin' I need to ask ya."

"Oh?"

"'Bout last names." He rummaged in the pocket of his shirt and came out with a cigar and lighter, going through the motions of lighting up to keep his hands busy. "I know a lot of the time women who've done stuff under one name keep it so there's no confusion."

"I would'nae mind taking Howlett as my name, Logan."

"I don't want ya to," he said, a slight growl to his voice. "I don't want the name, either, it don't mean a thing to me. Belongs to someone long dead I barely remember. So I wanted to know how ya felt about me takin' yer name."

Teva jerked a little in surprise and stole his cigar to take a few puffs so she could order her thoughts. "Well, that's about the last thing I expected tae hear. I certainly dinnae have a problem with it." She gave him back the cigar. "So that's settled, then. And I was thinking we could take that camping trip up to Canada now instead of waiting for the summer, no sense in waiting."

"Aw, c'mon, I was hopin' we could go somewhere involves you in a tiny bikini and lots o' tannin' oil."

She batted at the hand that was sneaking up towards her breast, giving him a glare she only half-felt. "I dinnae do tiny bikinis, pervert, not even for you."

"Who said you'd be wearin' it for very long?" He leered at her with a wolfish grin and nipped playfully at her chin. "I don't plan on either of us worryin' about clothes for at least 48 hours," he said, using his hand on her arm to pull her off-balance so that she was lying on her back and he had her pinned.

"Do ye ever have anything other than sex on the brain?"

"Well, sometimes it's violence, other times it's food, I ain't exactly complicated." He smoothed his hand over her hair, tugging on the end of her braid when he got to it. "Though come to think of it, goin' up to Canada don't sound too bad. I got a place up there I ain't been to in years, as long as ya don't mind roughin' it."

Teva rolled her eyes at him. "Have I ever given you reason to believe I'm a priss who does'nae like getting her hands dirty? All I care about is getting away with you for a while and taking thorough advantage of what I hope is a secluded cabin."

"Plannin' on makin' a lot o' noise?" he asked, smirking. "What the fuck?" His cellphone went off and he frowned at the tune of "SexyBack" as he pulled the phone out of his pocket. "Remind me not to let Tony touch my phone ever again," he said when he saw who it was. "What the hell do ya want, Tin Man?"

Teva snickered and sat up when he released her, listening with amusement at the insults the two men seemed to be trading. Stark had likely just gotten sick of everyone he knew having Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" as their ringtone for him.

"Tony wants to know if you're okay with strippers at my stag party."

"Oh, for the love of Jesus. Are you going to fuck them?"

Logan snorted. "I don't go in for fake tits, darlin'. Might get a lap dance, though."

"Just as long as you come home to me, you can do whatever. Besides, we all know Tony will bogart all the strippers."


	6. Chapter 6

_Finally an update! For my long-time readers, I apologize for my extensive absence, it was completely unplanned and unexpected for me. I've been struggling with medical issues, namely depression and anxiety, and I recently discovered that I don't actually need to be on antidepressants, which is a good thing because they completely kill my creativity. This has happened in the past and I'd hoped it wouldn't happen again when I started a new treatment course last summer, but alas that was not to be._

_I'm once again off meds and even after the first week I could feel my muses returning. I've been a hell of a lot more productive and I anticipate updates coming a lot more frequently now. Maybe not every week as in the past, but certainly not nine months apart!_

_

* * *

_

Rain from a summer storm pattered on the roof of the small one-room cabin in the Canadian Rockies and washed out the scenery around it, making everything seem hazy and slightly distant, the moisture in the air robbing one's perception of depth. The raindrops occasionally hit the top of the chimney and hissed into steam.

Inside the cabin Logan stirred from sleep, eyes immediately going to the woodstove where he could see only a few glowing embers left from the fire that had kept the outside chill at bay all night. Carefully, so as not to disturb his mate, he pushed back the covers and cursed when his bare feet touched the cold floor though the surrounding air was still comfortable. He built up the fire again, thought about making a quick dash outside to replenish the pile of wood but decided it could wait until later when one or both of them was dressed and it wasn't so damned cold outside.

Teva stirred when he crawled back into bed, automatically turning towards him so that her face was pressed against his neck. Her warm breath made need and goosebumps skate across his skin, his hand on her hip clutching so that she responded in sleep with a soft moan that made him become painfully hard.

With his other hand he gently touched her side on his way up towards her breasts, cupping one through her tanktop and feeling the tip already drawn up beneath his palm; it was incredibly easy to arouse her in sleep, even more than when she was awake, and he wanted to see how far he could push her before she woke up. The hand on her hip slid down slowly, under the edge of her underwear and lower where he found her already wet and open, her body responding even if her mind wasn't, and he easily slid a finger into her.

She moaned again, shifted restlessly, her hips rolling in response to his touch and he felt her mouth open against his neck.

He growled, low and quiet, pumping his finger a couple more times before he added a second one. His hand on her breast drew lazy circles around the tip, teasing her, and already he could feel her beginning to spasm around his fingers, her moans growing a bit louder and her body shuddering every few moments. He pressed the heel of his palm against the most sensitive part of her and with that pressure brought her closer, higher.

Logan knew the moment she woke up because her teeth clamped down on his neck and broke the skin as he took her up and over. Her pleasure slammed into him, too, through their link, and he was glad he had such strong control over his body's responses.

"Mornin'," he said smugly when she finally stopped thrashing against him.

"Mmmmm," she replied, her voice nearly a purr. "That was a lovely wake-up." She stretched her arms up, her eyes opening when she finished, and he watched her pupils widen when he lifted his hand and sucked his fingers clean. Her breathing, which had started to return to normal, sped up again along with her heartbeat. She bit her lower lip and then grinned, dimples appearing in her cheeks. "My turn."

Teva reached for his hand and touched the back, fingers finding the scar tissue that had built up over the decades. "Give me a claw, love," she said.

He raised an eyebrow but complied, letting one slide out a few inches. Another burst of lust shot up his spine when she guided it to cut off her underwear, the destroyed garment flung off somewhere in the cabin, followed quickly by her shirt which she shimmied out of.

"Retract it," she said, laughing softly. He was sufficiently distracted by her unclothed state that he'd forgotten to do so. He had to exert conscious control to retract the claw with a soft _snakt_.

She pushed him onto his back and straddled him, pressing his cock between their bodies and sliding against him with the wetness between her legs.

"You gonna tease me to death?" he asked, having to grit his teeth to get the words out.

Her answer was to rise on her knees and take him in, and even with the orgasm she'd had it took her a few strokes to sheath him completely.

"Ah, god," she breathed out, settling back down, hands on his chest. "I dinnae think I'll ever get used tae this."

"To what?"

She leaned down, capturing his mouth in a slow, devouring kiss. "How much I need ye," she answered finally. "How much I love ye, how much I want ye like I've never had ye before."

Logan tucked a loose bit of hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering along the curve of her jaw. So close, even in the dark, he could see in her eyes what she'd said, what she felt that flowed over the link between them; he'd wondered if she'd ever rely solely on the bond to let him know her feelings and appreciated that she didn't, that she was as at ease with telling him what was on her mind and in her heart as she was just letting him see and feel it.

"I know, baby," he said, bringing her close to kiss her again. His eyes closed and he groaned when she broke free and began to ride him, slowly at first, her eyes locked onto his when he opened them. _"Harder,"_ he growled, gripping her hips to direct her, keep her grinding against him.

Teva obliged and picked up speed a little, too, crying out when he reached up to roll one of her nipples between rough fingers, making her jerk against him. Her nails raked down his chest, too short to draw blood but leaving pink marks in their wake before her hands rose back up to grip his shoulders hard enough that she left momentary bruises. The strong muscles of her legs held him tight and worked tirelessly, aided by her minimal healing factor, to keep up a brutal pace that soon had them both crying out. Her body arched backwards with the force of her second orgasm and she became almost painfully tight around him; his hands left marks on her hips where he gripped her while they rode out the pleasure.

She collapsed on top of him, breathing hard and occasionally twitching with aftershocks.

He stroked her back, not wanting to let her go quite yet, and in those moments where they both returned to earth, he was hit with a realization: he was content. He'd been chasing that elusive feeling for so long that he hadn't even recognized it until now, in the quiet where the only sounds were the slackening rain and the crackle of the fire; it was a warm, solid feeling in his chest where before there had been only pain and darkness, and he prayed to a god that he didn't believe in, prayed that he wouldn't lose it now that he had it.

"You wanna get up?" he asked when she'd stilled again.

"Are ye mental?" She huffed and moved off of him, curling up beside him. "It's still cold, the sun is'nae even up yet, and I'm on my honeymoon, ye numpty. Let it wait."

The blankets had gotten kicked askew with their lovemaking and now he pulled them back up, tucked her in against him with her body cradled along his arm, her head on his shoulder. Between the two of them heat returned quickly.

"It feel weird to you?" he asked, stroking her hair. "Being married, I mean."

Teva snorted. "A little, I suppose. I dinnae have your experience with it, this being my first time." Her hand lay flat on his chest, over his heart, the left with its wedding ring. "Feels strange to think of ye as Mr. Lawson when I've only ever known ye as Logan."

"That's the only name I've ever known until a couple years ago, besides Wolverine." His words took on a low growl. "An' that ain't a name I much like usin'."

She turned her head slightly, kissing his shoulder. "Ye can add 'husband' to your list of names, _a chuisle_."

_"'A chuisle'?"_ His lack of accent mangled the Gaelic endearment a bit, but it still sounded like 'acooshla' as she'd pronounced it. "That's a new one."

"It's something my grandda used to call my grandmum, when I was a wee lass and they were still alive." Teva projected a sense of longing and loss speaking of the only elders she'd had who'd loved her. "It means 'hearts blood' or something thereabouts. Usually only used among blood relatives but, well, I think between the two of us we've shed enough o' that particular substance for each other."

"Sounds about right." He could hear the sleepiness in her voice. "Go back to sleep, darlin'. Ain't nowhere we need to be."

* * *

After coffee and a hearty breakfast they finished repairs on the cabin. When they'd arrived the day before the roof had been in poor shape so they'd taken care of that right away so it would be a solid shelter, saving the rest for the next day. It was mostly just patching holes, shoring up some weak points in the walls and floor. The stack of firewood against the front wall by the door needed to be replenished; Logan took care of that while Teva cleaned up inside and put away the groceries they'd brought along for their stay.

The woods surrounding the cabin were a combination of wild and somewhat tame, the latter from Logan's off-and-on efforts to create a small clearing around the building and a traversable path allowing access from more main roads. The trees ranged from deciduous to conifer and offered both shade and protection from the elements, though shade wasn't as much of a necessity with the temperature hovering in the 50s.

After lunch they headed into those woods. A hawk wheeled overhead casting a shadow on the ground. The slightest rustle of groundcover off to the left made Logan freeze and, behind him, Teva followed suit at the same moment as she'd been taught.

Both remained still a few moments more, scarcely breathing when the rustling grew louder and a doe broke through with a fawn following on shaky legs.

_~Baby ain't but a few days old~ _he said over the link. _~Fawns are born in the spring after the rutting season in the fall.~_

He heard Teva's breath catch when the two deer stopped, the doe lowering her head to nudge the foal when it faltered.

_~I cannae believe we're so close~ _she replied.

_~Let's get closer.~_ He could feel her surprise and nearly laughed out loud. _~Just do what I do. Move slow, quiet, and stay behind them. We're upwind so they won't catch our scent.~_

As one they stalked forward noiselessly with Logan in the lead, inch by inch, until they were barely more than a foot or two away. Logan lifted a hand to touch the fawn and just brushed his fingers over the soft pelt before the two deer bolted at the sound of something large crashing through underbrush.

A huge buck in a lather from running hard burst out in front of them, eyes wide and rolling, and when it saw them it bolted away in the same direction as the doe and fawn.

"Somethin's wrong," Logan said, lifting his head to scent the air. "Ain't any predators around here would spook a buck that size. Let's get back to the cabin."

When his enhanced sense of smell failed to tell him anything he reached out with something else, that sixth sense most humans have of being able to sense the presence of someone or something. It was the same kind of sense that prey animals had, an evolutionary holdover from when humans weren't as close to the top of the food chain as in modern times, when they were just as likely to be hunted as they were to hunt. Whatever it was made the skin between his shoulders itch and he hunched them, his body instinctively crouching slightly in preparation for a fight.

The door of the cabin was standing wide open.

"There's someone inside," Teva said softly, voice pitched only for his ears. "I dinnae recognize them but there's something ... wrong, with their mind."

He heard the intruder before he saw them, a sound that seemed more mechanical than human, similar to what Piotr Rasputin sounded like when he'd transformed into his steel form. A moment later he saw the reason for it.

"Kane." Logan didn't know him very well, mostly only because of the Weapon Plus project, but he knew something had changed. THe last time he'd seen Kane the other man had been fully human whereas now ... he appeared to be more machine than organic, like a cross between a Terminator and one of the Borg.

"Wolverine."

"How'd you find me?" Logan asked.

Kane smiled. "Wasn't me, actually. There's only one person who knows where you'd be."

Behind him, Teva cursed and pulled her gun from its holster at the small of her back.

_~Where is he?~_

_~Not nearby but that does'nae mean he's no here.~ _She was checking her weapon, popping the magazine out in an automatic need to make sure it was full. _~Kane's the only other person I can sense so it may just be the two of them.~_ He could feel and hear her heartbeat pick up but even under the fear she was remaining calm, drawing from his confidence and her own training. He felt a slight buzz in his head that meant she was mimicking him, enhancing her senses and skills with his.

_~I can take care of Kane, you see if you can get to the truck.~_

_~I'm no going to leave you to fight on your own~_ she shot back.

Logan didn't have time to answer or argue further. Kane lifted a hand and fired with a weapon that looked a lot like Iron Man's repulsor beam but had the effect of a laser with the capability to burn, as evidenced by the now-smoking tree just to Logan's left.

He wasted no time in retaliating, lunging in and hoping that Kane's enhancements made him a poor melee fighter, whereas that was Logan's strong point. Unfortunately, it seemed Kane's strength had been increased and he backhanded Logan with a force Logan hadn't encountered since going up against the Hulk, and he landed several yards away on his back.

Teva opened fire with her XD-45, three shots that seemed to do little damage to the cyborg. She threw out a hand and found that her telempathy wasn't good against him, either.

Logan jumped back up almost immediately, winded but mostly unhurt. "I ain't comin' back, Kane, I already told Deadpool that a few weeks ago. Run back to your handlers and tell 'em."

"Unfortunately," Kane replied, "I've been given orders to bring you in regardless of your wishes."

"I don't give a shit." Logan lifted a hand, extending his claws. "I'll tear ya to pieces before I let ya take me back there. I'm done with those butchers."

Kane smiled again and it looked odd in a face that was half-human and half-machine. He lifted his hand again, this time pointing the weapon at Teva. "Even if it means her death? Honestly, Logan, I have no qualms about killing her."

Logan growled, lips drawing back in a snarl as he saw red at Kane's words. Without answering he launched himself at the cyborg again, this time clawing up the part of his face that was still organic, making Kane howl in pain and push him away.

"Get to the truck," he said to Teva, his voice a bass growl that was nearly unintelligible. "I want ya out of here, Teva, I can handle this."

"Dammit, Logan -"

"Go!" he roared, already moving away as Kane recovered.

Teva swallowed hard and finally accepted Logan's order, if only because she had her Glock in the truck and wanted the more formidable gun instead of just a semi-automatic. She could hear the fight behind her as she ran, digging in her pocket for the keys, and she almost made it.

As she was fitting the key in the lock, a hand reached around from behind and grabbed her neck.

"Hello, frail," Victor Creed purred, his breath ruffling her hair. "I missed you."

"I cannae say the same," she replied. She struggled against his hold and he let her go, but it was only to hold her from the front, still by her neck. She pressed the barrel of her gun against his side.

"Do it," he said, leaning in close to her face. He trailed one wicked talon down her cheek, leaving a pink mark behind but not breaking the skin. "I like pain. Makes me horny, and we got interrupted last time."

"Ye honestly think I'd just let ye rape me?" she spat. "Remember how that ended the time before?"

Creed chuckled. "Ya got the drop on me, frail, but that ain't gonna happen again." He jerked her forward suddenly, held her against his chest with one incredibly strong arm, and shifted her braid to the side.

She felt something cold touch the back of her neck and then cried out as whatever it was pierced her skin, pain shooting up into her head and down her spine.

"What the fuck -?"

"Neural inhibitor." Creed let her go. "Shuts yer powers off, delivers a low-grade paralytic so ya can't fight. Rather neat little gadget, don't ya think?"

"Fuck you."

He laughed again. "Exactly what I want, and exactly what I'll get. Ya might be an incentive for the runt to cooperate but yer also a reward for bringin' him in, and I plan to collect."

Teva felt like throwing up, both from the effects of the inhibitor and his casual talk of rape, reeling a bit as a flashback to their first encounter hit her full force. That time she'd had a fighting change, but now?

She realized the fighting had stopped and looked up to find Kane walking towards them with Logan slung over his shoulder, unconscious. She tried not to feel hopeless, helpless, but she failed.

"C'mon," Creed said, grabbing Teva by the arm and pulling her after him. "Let's get these two back, I'm dyin' for a beer."


	7. Chapter 7

A vicious headache dragged Logan out of unconsciousness, one of only a handful he could remember ever having, and it appeared to originate at the back of his neck. His eyes opened as his hand encountered something hard just at the base of his skull, and just as quickly he realized that his bond with Teva felt ... wrong.

He groaned and sat up, looking around the small room he'd been placed in: concrete floor and walls, grey and colorless, the monotony broken only by a heavy reinforced door that had a small barred window up top. A cot sat against one wall. It was unfamiliar but he knew where he was.

And he was alone. He couldn't contact his mate across their link.

He tried the door even though he knew it was pointless but it went against his nature to just sit there and do nothing like a helpless child.

Sitting down again with his back to the wall facing the door, he closed his eyes and went back over the events leading up to this point. He remembered being at the cabin, stalking deer and then coming back to find Kane there. He remembered fighting him and telling Teva to leave, but after that point the beast took over and whatever had happened between then and him being defeated was a complete blank.

The sound of footsteps outside the door brought him back to the present. He recognized the tread of combat boots and the cadence of the steps before he heard Teva cursing at someone in Gaelic, insulting their heritage rather rudely, and it was enough to make him breathe a little easier. She was safe, for now.

His hackles rose, though, when the door opened and she was pushed inside by a man in black BDUs and then followed by Creed. A snarl drew his lips back.

"Y'okay?" he asked his wife, not taking his eyes off the bigger feral.

"I've been better," she retorted. Her scent was spiky with anger underscored by fear, but that's all he smelled. Vic hadn't touched her yet. "You?"

"Same."

Creed said something quietly to the guard and the man left, closing the door behind him.

"Nice to have ya home, runt."

Logan growled. "Ya know this ain't where I belong. Why can't the project just leave me the fuck alone?"

The blond man crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the closed door. "'Cause yer their golden boy, Wolverine, the most successful attempt at making a killing machine." There was bitterness in his tone, always had been when they spoke of this; Creed was angry that Wolverine had been better at something than he was though he'd never admit to that. "They want ya back."

"And I already told you an' everyone else I ain't _comin'_ back."

"We'll see about that." Creed straightened up and rapped his knuckles on the door. The guard from before looked in and then opened the door to let him out.

Teva sighed and sank down on the cot with her back against the wall, her eyes squeezing shut.

Logan finally looked at her and was relieved to find she wasn't hurt. She looked worse for wear, her hair now loose, her clothes rumpled and ripped in a few places, and she had dark circles under her eyes.

"Y'sure yer okay?" he asked, crouching in front of her.

"Headache." She opened her eyes and looked at him and he saw that they were red from crying. "Worst I've ever had, even the ones I got when I manifested, and I cannae figure out if it's from the damned inhibitor or having my powers shut off."

"So that's why I can't feel ya." He gripped her arm and leaned in to kiss her forehead. "I'm sorry, baby, that ya got dragged into this."

Anger sparked in her eyes. "Are we going to have this conversation again?" She pulled away from him, hugging her knees to her chest. "I chose to be with ye, made vows I dinnae intend to break, and I'll thank ye no to question that."

"Dammit, Teva," he growled, "don't swipe at me. I'm not sayin' I wish we weren't together, I'm just sayin'..." He trailed off. "I know ya can fight, I've seen ya, but I'm worried about tryin' to get both of us out of here."

She bit her lip, meeting his gaze with some remorse. "I'd thought of that, too," she replied quietly. "I ken you've gotten out of worse situations than this on your own, but with me around it's going to be more difficult." Her head lowered, her forehead resting on her upraised knees. "I'm worse than useless without my guns or my powers."

Logan didn't respond, didn't know what to say to that because she was right. He was at a disadvantage, too, without his healing factor, but he didn't mind getting hurt in the process of escaping; the thought of Teva - with her minimal healing abilities - getting hurt to the point she couldn't survive made his stomach do a sickening flip that made him swallow down bile.

"What were they doin' with ya?" he finally asked, changing the subject to break the silence between them.

"Asking questions, mostly." She lifted her head only to rest it against the wall behind her, eyes still closed against the pain. "The nature of our relationship, how much I know about your past and powers, what _my _powers are... I lost track after a while, and after trying to make sure I did'nae tell them anything important. Such as my secondary mutation."

That was worrying. It indicated they were looking for a way to break him. "They didn't hurt ya?"

She shook her head minutely. "No, though Victor could'nae help telling me all the things he'd like to do to me." She shuddered. "I dinnae care what else happens in here but I dinnae want him getting his hands on me, not when I cannae even the odds."

"We'll get outta here," he assured her, feeling a little better when she allowed him to put his arm around her. "I promise ya that, Teva."

~~~~~~~~~~

They came for him an indeterminate amount of time later. Teva had been dozing with her head in his lap, her head still paining her, and he couldn't begrudge her what little rest she could get if it would give them a better chance at fighting their way out.

Footsteps sounded outside the door a few moments before it opened, revealing two guards he hadn't seen before.

"Get up," the taller of the two commanded. His namebadge read _Lt. Anders_ and he had sandy blond hair in a crew cut, with piercing blue eyes that seemed to take in everything. He carried what looked like some sort of taser.

Logan gently nudged Teva awake, helping her to sit up. He hated to comply so easily but he needed to get a sense of the layout of the place, a sense of how well-guarded it was, if he was going to plan any kind of escape.

"I'll be back," he whispered, dropping a kiss on her head.

"Be careful," she replied needlessly.

He rose and followed the shorter guard, this one with dark hair and hazel eyes whose namebadge said _Cpl. Waters_.

"Where're we goin'?"

"Director wants to talk to you," Anders answered.

_Director?_ A chill ran up Logan's spine. He'd heard of the man, knew he was cut from the same cloth as Dr. Cornelius, the man who'd tortured Logan and turned him into a mindless feral killer. If he was in charge of this outfit then the situation had taken a decided turn for the worse.

It was nearly impossible to keep track of where the guards were leading him. The corridors looked very similar, all the same dull grey broken intermittently by doors and cross hallways, and at one point they entered an elevator and went two floors up only to come out into another bland corridor. The place smelled sterile, making it difficult for him to mark his way through scent, too, though he catalogued the scents of the guards and anyone else they encountered. Finally they came to a door that Anders keyed open, pushing Logan inside.

"Ah, here's the mighty Wolverine." The Director sat behind a desk where several file folders lay in a tidy pile, one of which he'd been perusing before he looked up. His eyes were cold and green, the color of faded money, with crows-feet at the corners marking his age. "We've gone to an awful lot of trouble to bring you here."

"Gee, I'm sorry," Logan replied sarcastically.

The Director smiled but it was predatory instead of amused. "Of course you're not, but that's no matter. You belong to Weapon X, Wolverine, we've poured billions into your development and we can't just have you running around doing as you please."

"I belong to no one," Logan spat out, his hands clenching into fists as his claws began itching to be released, "least of all you. I killed every bastard in that complex to get free an' I'll do it here, too."

"Under other circumstances that would be true," the Director said. "However, as I'm sure you have already deduced, we have a way now to ensure your cooperation. Anything less than complete submission and you will quickly find yourself a widower."

A red haze coated Logan's vision a scant second before he lunged at the other man, his claws emerging painfully as always, and the beast inside of him howled in triumph as three furrows opened up across the Director's face. The other man screamed and lifted his hand to the bleeding wound, shouting at the guards.

"Rrrraagghhh!" Pain burst inside Logan's head, enough to blind him, and when he could see again he was on his knees and the Director was gone.

Creed stood in his place, holding up a small object the approximate size and shape of a penlight. "Did ya forget about the inhibitor?" he asked, spinning the gadget in his fingers.

Logan shook his head, trying to clear away the pain and the dizziness that was making his vision swim a bit, and as he looked down he saw the cause: his hands were bleeding. He had indeed forgotten about the inhibitor, and right now it was preventing his body from healing as rapidly as it could. His claws always tore open the skin but he never had to worry about the wounds, at least not until now.

"Can't say that asshole didn't deserve what ya did to him," Creed continued, his tone conversational. "Been wantin' to do that myself but they stuck a chip in me that keeps me from goin' after anyone here that's my 'superior.'" That last was said in such a way to make it clear he considered no one his superior. Sabretooth had always viewed himself as being at the top of the food chain, everyone else was just prey.

Creed moved across the room, crouching down next to him. "C'mon, runt, it can't be that bad. Just say yes."

"Why?" Logan asked, finally finding his voice. "There's no love lost between us, why the hell ya want me to stick around?"

"I dunno, maybe for old time's sake. We used to be pretty good as a team, least when you weren't bein' a bleeding heart, an' if I know where ya are that just means it'll be that much easier to kill ya when I feel like it."

"Why are ya even here, Creed?" Logan sat back on his heels. "Yer the last person I'd think would wanna be on a leash."

"They let me kill whoever I want and they pay me for it." Vic smiled, baring his teeth. "Don't get much better than that."

Logan grinned mirthlessly back. "Still a leash, Vic, even if it's a long one. They control ya. Yer just a dog they let loose whenever they want somethin' nasty done."

The bigger feral snarled. "Same as you'll be, runt. You ain't gonna let them hurt your little bitch so it's just a matter o' time before they got ya brainwashed an' killin' again. Don't act like yer better than me." Another smiled appeared, this one vicious and cruel. "But make no mistake, Wolverine: whether or not ya go along with it, the redhead ain't gettin' outta here without me markin' her."

Rage flooded Logan, just as it did any time his mate was threatened, but when he tried to unsheathe his claws he found that he couldn't.

Creed chuckled darkly. "Problem, Wolverine?" he asked tauntingly. "Inhibitor does more than just block yer powers. It can paralyze ya, all of yer body or just a few select muscle groups." He wiggled the gadget in his hand. "Nice little piece o' tech, this is."

A deep growl rumbled in Logan's chest. "I don't care what ya do to me but ya ain't touchin' her."

"Ya keep talkin' but all I hear is 'blah blah blah.'" Creed rose and gestured to the guards at the door. "Take 'im back, an' leave the inhibitor on this setting. Don't want him clawin' up anyone else."

Logan wanted very much to do just that, regardless of the fact he'd lose more blood. The wounds on his hands had begun to clot, at least, but he didn't know how much blood he'd already lost, just that it was enough to make him woozy, and he hadn't felt that in a very long time. It made the first threads of fear settle in his belly to take root, fear for himself and not just his mate.

Teva was on her feet as soon as he returned, concern making her ignore the guards when they told her to back away.

"Sod off," she growled, reaching for him. "What'd they do to ye?"

"Did it myself." He allowed her to guide him back to the cot. "Attacked the Director, didn't even think about my healin' factor being turned off."

She was examining his hands, being careful not to disturb the wounds and make them bleed again. "They threatened ye some more, didn't they?"

He nodded. "Won't be the last time, either. And if I keep sayin' no they'll take it out on you." He sighed. "I ain't gonna let that happen, Tev. If I can't find a way outta here, I'll let 'em have me if it means you go free."

"Logan -"

"Don't." He didn't mean to snap at her but he felt short-tempered and ill. "Like ya said, I got a better chance of escapin' if I don't got you to worry about. If you can get out you can rally the cavalry and work at it from the outside."

Teva met his gaze levelly and he wished he knew what she was thinking, what she was feeling, aside from just anger. He could read that from her posture and expression alone but their link had always afforded him a more nuanced understanding of her, gave him the subtle, unconscious things he couldn't sense otherwise.

"I hate it. I hate that you're right." A fine tremor ran through her body. "It feels like giving up, though."

"I know, darlin', I know." He cupped her chin in his hand, rubbing his thumb over her cheekbone. She leaned into the touch. "But I been through this once already an' came out of it mostly intact. An' this time, I got somethin' more than just survival to bring me back if I go too far."

She shifted closer to rest her forehead against his. "I know, I just -" Her inhale was shaky. "God. Why does this keep happening? Why can these bastards no leave ye in peace and just let ye live your life?" Her eyes closed and tears tracked down her cheeks. "Why can we no be happy?"

He had no answer for that so he shrugged and gathered her in against his side.

Silence settled between them, strained and nearly tangible. Logan closed his eyes and focused on his senses, hearing Teva's breath even out into fitful sleep as physical and mental exhaustion took over.

He leaned his head against hers and prepared himself for what came next.


	8. Chapter 8

_This is where it gets really dark, folks, and earns its **M** rating._

_And yes, I know this is coming quickly on the heels of the last chapter, but this one pretty much just wrote itself. I don't anticipate having subsequent chapters up nearly so quickly._

_Also, I keep forgetting to mention that I've got a fanmix for Logan and Teva, which can be found at my Dreamwidth journal: redbess (dot) dreamwidth (dot) org/50957 (dot) html; sorry for the convoluted "link", FF.N won't let me put the real deal here. If you need/want the direct link, I can email it to you.__ The mix for this particular fic is still in the works, but the first two are complete._

_

* * *

_

Teva sighed.

"What?" Logan asked.

She blinked at him, sitting up from where she'd been curled on her side on the cot dozing. "My headache, it's gone." She touched her forehead and squinted a moment, then gave him a weary smile. "And the link is back. They must have turned off my inhibitor."

He frowned at her. "Wonder why?"

"I dinnae much care at the moment as this is the first time I've been able to see straight in ... well, in who knows how long now." Truly, she'd lost track of time with no way to see the passage of sun and moon, without which even Logan was at a loss.

His answer was a growl and she sighed, trying not to yell in frustration, anger and fear. The longer they were in here, and the longer the project had an influence on him, the worse he was getting; little by little his humanity was peeling away, his resistance to psychological torture becoming more and more nonexistent. He'd been taken away several more times, vowing to find a way out if he could, but in so many ways he was helpless against the methods with which they could abuse his mind.

After the first time he'd been in a near-feral state and only when he'd calmed down some was he able to tell her that he'd been told they'd "think about" letting her go now that he was cooperating. Teva didn't want to acknowledge what that might mean, hoping that it was just a case of wanting to keep Logan docile until they had him completely broken. And since that first time, each time he came back, he was less himself. He was barely coherent and only able to tell her they were trying to destroy his ability to withstand pain.

Teva felt helpless to aid him with no way to link with him, no way to ease the pain and suffering he was going through, at least until now.

"Come here," she directed, reaching out a hand to him the way he'd done to her so many times in the past.

Logan stopped pacing for a moment to look at her. "Why?"

She resisted a glare. "I can do it just as easily from here but it's more simple if you cooperate.

They stared at each other a few more breaths before he complied, flopping down next to her.

Teva went up on her knees, placing one hand on his shoulder and the other along the back of his neck. It felt amazing to be able to feel him in her mind again, even more amazing to open the link again, at least until she pushed open the door and was hit with the turmoil in his head.

She breathed out hard, a soft sound of pain and shock escaping her before she bit her lip and braced herself.

"Don't," Logan growled.

"Shut it," she growled back. "I've acted as a steam valve for ye once before, I can do it again. You're no good if you've gone insane."

He grunted but subsided, slumping back against the wall.

She shifted with him and closed her eyes, trying to ignore the defeat with which he'd decided to submit to her ministrations. Under other circumstances it was interesting to see how much trust he'd show her but now it just made her sick to her stomach.

The inside of his mind was a mess, not unlike the black storm she'd found after he'd regained his memories, only this time everything seemed to be washed in red, disembodied voices screaming from all directions. As she looked around she found a wolf with blood on its muzzle staring back at her with amber eyes.

"Jesus," she whispered, shuddering before she brought herself back to the task at hand. With a deft, gentle soft touch, she drew away some of the bestial anger, pulled it into herself and felt her own levels of rage increase while at the same time Logan began to breathe a little easier. The low growl that had taken up residence in his chest decreased in volume and ferocity.

His heavy body leaning into hers brought her back to herself and she cradled his head against her shoulder, stroking his hair and murmuring to him in Gaelic, temporarily robbed of her ability to speak English. The words were similar to those she'd used with the horses on her grandparents' farm when they'd needed gentling, especially the stallion, a sibilance that sounded very much like shushing. Slowly the growl subsided.

"Thanks, darlin'," he said, apparently having found his voice again. "I was losin' it."

"I ken," she replied, letting him go when he sat up again. "Anything I can do to help, I will."

Logan looked around the small cell as he stood and began to stretch his limbs, rolling his head to make the bones in his neck pop and release the tension there.

"Can ya sense anything?" he asked.

Teva blinked at him and then pushed out with her telepathy, shaking her head when she came up to what felt like a brick wall. "Nothing past this room, so far as I can tell. If they've got a way to inhibit me I would'nae be surprised if they're blocking me." She snorted ruefully. "No way they'd want a psi poking around in their heads finding out all their schemes and whatnot."

"Would be damned convenient, though." He moved to stand beside the door, leaning in a familiar pose with one foot lifted and pressed flat against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. "But I still can't shake the feelin' that you havin' your powers back ain't a good thing. Why now?"

She shrugged. "I dinnae ken, and I agree as much as it's nice to no have my head feeling as if it'll split open any moment." She looked down at her nails and the chipped silver polish, felt a twinge of homesickness and loss at the memory of Ororo painting her nails the night before the wedding while they'd watched TV and gossiped with Kitty and Jubilee. Her toes were the same color and Jubilee had used a special pen to draw a little flower on one of her big toes; usually she abhorred such girly things but it had been fun to sit around with her friends and feel like a normal human being. The three women filled a hole in her heart that had been empty for years.

Tears burned in her eyes and she willed them away, unwilling to show such a sign of weakness in this place.

"I dunno how much more o' this I can handle," Logan said, rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth. Across the link he felt nauseated. "It's gettin' harder each time to come back, to shove the animal back and not do somethin' I'll regret."

She looked up at him. "Are you afraid you're going to hurt me?"

When he nodded she felt her heart break a little. She unfolded herself from the cot and went to him, touching his arms.

"You would'nae, not ever."

"Teva -"

"You would'nae."

Logan shook his head. "I know ya saw what it was like in my head. It's been buildin' each time, gettin' worse an' worse, and the last time they brought me back here ..." He trailed off, looking down. "I looked at ya an' all I saw was somethin' weak to take my rage out on."

The primal part of her brain wanted her to take a step back, then another, to get as far away from that confession as possible. The rational, human part, however, stood its ground, knowing that to do otherwise would contribute to breaking him. She took his chin in her hand, had to squeeze and force him to look at her when he fought her grip.

"Listen to me, ye stubborn Canuck," she said, her voice taking on a growling edge that was both a result of venting off her mate's anger and a consequence of her own. "I believe ye, that ye were that far gone, but I refuse to accept that ye would'nae have stopped before ye hurt me. As strong as that urge is, as strong as your beast is, the man is stronger. Logan is stronger than Wolverine, ye have to be or you'd be exactly like Sabretooth." Moving closer she pressed a kiss to his mouth, forced him to accept it.

"I love ye, I cannae do otherwise, and I know ye better than ye ken yourself."

His shoulders sagged, his arms dropping to his sides. "Sometimes yer faith in me is all that gets me through."

"Nothing will ever change that, _mo chridhe._" She took his hands and led him back to the cot. "Ye need sleep, Logan. I'll keep watch."

* * *

Sustaining Logan was taking its toll on Teva, on her own sanity and her energy levels, barely kept up by what little food and water they were provided at differing intervals. It created a sort of delirious state that she tried her best to hide from him, feeling it was imperative that she continue what she'd started in keeping him stable.

The next time they came for him she barely noticed, half-asleep as she was, but when her eyes fluttered open and she saw Creed standing there, she panicked. A sickening wave of adrenaline made her vision swim as she struggled to sit upright, scrabbling back the last few inches until she hit the wall behind her.

"Y'know, frail," he said conversationally, "the scent o' yer fear is somethin' like a drug to me. I think maybe it's 'cause ya smell so much like the runt an' I ain't ever smelled that on him. Ya might be the closest I'll ever get." He pushed away from the door and stalked forward with gliding steps, one foot placed directly in front of the other like the big cat he so closely resembled.

Even with the surge of energy she felt lethargic and she had barely enough sense to realize she needed to conserve that precious commodity. She watched him come closer until he loomed over her, his legs bumping up against the cot.

"Bet ya been waitin' on me, wonderin' when I'd show up again. Wonderin' when ol' Vic would come callin' to make good my promise to the runt that I'd destroy everything good in his life, every last beautiful thing, 'cause I'd say it's about due. I let ya live in peace long enough."

"Ye like to talk a big game, Victor," Teva breathed out, her voice a whisper of its former self. "Ye told me once ye were going to rape me and we both recall how that turned out."

Anger flared in his amber eyes but he held himself in check, only letting himself touch her leg where he drew idle patterns with presently-harmless fingers, his claws withdrawn for now. It tickled and made her want to throw up. "Yeah, but then ya were at full strength, an' ya had weapons. Now?" He chuckled, an evil purr of sound. "Weak as a newborn kitten an' twice as tasty. Y'know what the best part is?"

"Wh - ah!" Her query was cut off when he grabbed her by the neck and jerked her up so that they were staring each other in the face.

"Not only does the runt get to watch this," he replied, jerking a thumb up and back at the video camera in the corner, "he'll get to feel it over that bond ya got. I can only imagine how bloody he's gonna make himself tryin' to get free. Ya think it'll feel like I'm violatin' him, too?"

As if in response to his taunting she could indeed feel Logan losing it, realizing what was going on now that his mate was alone. She was almost surprised she couldn't physically hear his roar of rage and frustration, made worse because he couldn't unsheathe his claws and do damage.

Creed didn't give her time to answer, instead pushing her back onto the cot with his hand still loosely circling her neck. Her head bounced on the mattress and even that made her see stars momentarily in her weakened state so that matters had progressed further than she realized by the time she stopped seeing them: Creed had slashed at the front of her jeans to get at the parts of her he wanted.

With nails longer than she usually had she lashed out at him, catching him across the cheek in four bloody furrows that only made him laugh. Her feet kicked out to hurt him anyway she could, to keep him away from what he wanted.

"They told me I should tie ya up but I want ya to fight," he told her, still holding her down while he did something with his other hand that she couldn't see or feel. "Just ain't the same otherwise, y'know?"

Teva snarled at him, felt herself losing the ability of speech with her own rapidly-dwindling sanity and the feral state Logan was descending into somewhere else in the facility. She tried to shut the door between them to spare him this much and felt the fingers of her astral self slide right off, and her last thought of true clarity was a strangled _~I'm sorry!~_ to Logan when she realized her shields had been stripped away, just another kind of rape. And even as she fought back, a small part of her came loose and buried itself deep while the rest of her went on survival autopilot.

Pain blossomed between her legs, a sharp burst of it that pulled not a cry but a gasp from her as though the air had been knocked out of her, and she couldn't get much more than that out as Creed's hand tightened on her throat. He gave a low, gutteral cry of triumph, his other hand clamped down on her thigh to keep her in place, his claws embedded deep in her skin the way they'd been the day he'd nearly crippled her. With a sickening sort of clarity she realized she could sense his thoughts, could feel the joy he took in hurting her, in invading her. It made her head spin trying to push that away, made her feel as if she were going to throw up. She didn't want him in her mind.

She could do nothing but struggle even though that made the pain worse, made it ache in a dull throb with the frantic beat of her heart but she couldn't not fight, couldn't lay there and be passive even if it meant not hurting.

He was just as bloody as her by the end though his wounds were gone almost as soon as they appeared, his clothes in just as sorry a state where she ripped them and did her damndest to make him stop. His body pinned hers to the bed so heavily she wondered vaguely if her pelvis would be crushed, the thought coming just as she felt him lose his even rhythm and he let her neck go.

With a burst of speed she grabbed him by his long hair and plunged her thumb into his eye socket, felt the orb pop and then her own satisfaction and that of her mate's that she'd done some little damage, but by that point he'd finished. He roared in agony and backhanded her so that she actually rolled away from him, falling off the cot and hitting the floor, her head ricocheting off the cold, hard concrete. Stars once again exploded before her eyes.

Still, she could feel Logan struggling, fighting her to keep their bond connected. She couldn't understand it, couldn't fathom why he wouldn't just let her close it, to spare himself further pain. Another, deeper pain inside of her made her gasp and writhe, an agony worse than that caused by the concussion that was slowly dragging her under, something attached to her soul rending itself apart.

She could have sworn she heard Logan howling before she was sucked into oblivion.

* * *

Logan had been prepared for another session of tortures both physical and psychological, drawn up every shred of lucidity he had left and wrapped himself in it hoping that this time wouldn't be the time he didn't come back from it. Creed had been there as he always was, smirking and taunting but never following through with his threats so Logan didn't think anything of it, at least not until he realized they weren't taking him to the same place.

It was on the same floor as the cell with a single chair that they strapped him to. A handful of screens sat on a table, showing what appeared to be security feeds from various parts of the complex, and at first he felt confusion, not understanding why he was there. He saw guards moving in and out of frame down hallways, a few labcoat types doing what they did best, but nothing that made any sense.

"Why am I here?" he demanded, craning his head to try to look back at one of the guards. "What the hell's goin' on?"

"Check out the bottom right feed," he was told, just as the first nauseating wave of fear hit him, his mate unconsciously sending out the psychic equivalent of a distress call that only he could hear.

His eyes ticked to the screen and locked on, his lips drawing back as he watched Creed slip across it, heading for the huddled mass Teva made on the cot. She was clearly trying to make herself as small a target as possible but, with nowhere else to go, it was a useless gesture.

He heard both her words and the bigger feral's, heard the thoughts flitting through her head at warp speed.

"Get her outta there," he growled. "Goddammit, he's gonna kill her!" His muscles flexed as he tried to free himself, apparently a losing proposition since they had him in cuffs of some kind of metal that was stronger than usual, something he couldn't break. The harder he fought the more he felt the cuffs cut into his skin, blood creating lubrication that gave him an unexpected edge that was further aided when he violently dislocated several fingers on both hands and slipped free of the restraints, bones in his feet popping and compressing until they came free, too.

His first target was the guard just behind him, his feral state giving him a distinctive edge despite the inhibitor so that he easily overpowered the man, howling in satisfaction when he felt the neck snap. The second guard hit him with his taser, the dead one having been in possession of the inhibitor's control device, but all the blast did was anger the Wolverine further. He took out the brunette man with similar ease, shoving the barrel of the taser into the soft flesh of his stomach.

Dimly he was aware of the end of the conversation between Creed and Teva. She shouted something to Logan over their link, an apology he barely understood until he felt her trying to break the link, shut it off to spare him from experiencing what she was enduring. The first bloom of pain from her nearly knocked him flat on his back, and a distant part of him knew that she was unable to spare him; even worse, the shields between the two of them had been torn apart, so that each took on aspects of the other, Logan becoming somewhat more controlled while Teva fought like an animal. Another part of her was still struggling to shut down the link and Logan fought her, struggled to hold onto that to keep her sane the way she'd been doing for him.

Blinding pain in his head made his vision go black, long enough that reinforcements poured into the room he was in before he could react. His vision cleared for one brief moment, a moment in which he witnessed the aftermath of the rape, Teva's body broken and bleeding on the floor of the cell. Several guards piled on top of him to keep him down until his inhibitor could be activated.

The last thing he realized before they put him down was that the link was gone, but not like it had been before. The lack of her presence felt even more permanent.

She was dead.

* * *

_Author's Note: Please don't hit me!_


	9. Chapter 9

_Apologies, once again, for the delay. _

* * *

"Let's try this one more time."

The guard in front of Logan, who'd been doing his damnedest to beat him into submission, shook his hand out. Despite protective measures he'd split open his knuckles but he didn't seem to care. He had a predatory sort of smile on his lips.

A woman in a labcoat stood off to the side, a mousy brunette who looked vaguely queasy at all the violence but hadn't left the room yet.

"It would go so much easier for both of us if you cooperated," she said, all but hiding behind her clipboard. "Jameson could stop."

Logan wanted to give in, to give up. He didn't even need to close his eyes to see the horrible images of Vic and Teva, of all the things that psychopath had done that were so much worse than...

_Death. Denyin' it don't make it any less true._ He took a shaking breath in. _She's gone._ And her dying had torn a hole in his psyche, in his soul, that hurt worse than anything - any pain physical or mental - that he'd ever endured in the past. It felt like a raw nerve exposed to the air multiplied by 10, and in comparison being beaten into a pulp was nothing. He barely even felt that.

What he _did_ feel, though, was the effects of adamantium poisoning. Since they'd turned off his healing factor when he'd been forced to watch his mate suffer, it had slowly been leeching poison into his system; previously, they'd turned it back on each time he was returned to his cell, so that he'd be ready for more torture when they came for him again. Under normal circumstances it was just a dull ache in his body, kept in check by his mutation. Now it was a screaming agony that almost took his breath away.

Logan bared his teeth at Jameson. The guard, blond and built like a linebackers, grinned back. He was the second they'd brought in after the first had suffered a severely smashed face when he got too close and the feral drove his metal-coated skull forward.

Jameson was more cautious, and more thorough. It was obvious he'd been trained in interrogation though he'd had to modify his techniques for someone whose bones couldn't break, and it was also obvious the bigger man was enjoying himself. He was no different than any other common thug except he got paid to do it.

He drove his hand, fingers stiffened, into Logan's throat, choking the mutant as his trachea collapsed.

Air refused to fill his lungs, bringing stars into his vision while his brain starved for oxygen, and for a moment he panicked. His hands, bound behind his back, flexed as he reflexively tried to free them, as if that would save him somehow; it wasn't like being strangled and removing the obstructing object. And with his healing factor inhibited there was a very real chance this was the end.

Just as he started losing consciousness he felt the familiar burning pain of tissues knitting back together and he heard the woman scolding Jameson.

"If you kill him we're not going to get anywhere." She had the inhibitor's controller in her hand, clearly she'd been the one to deactivate it. "You might be alright with losing your job but I'm not, and you were instructed to do whatever damage is necessary for compliance without damaging his ability to speak."

"It's not like we couldn't get a psi in here," Jameson protested.

The woman sighed. "If you'd bothered to listen when we were briefed, Weapon X has a natural near-immunity to telepathic attack; the only reason his wife penetrated it was because he allowed her to."

_Now how the hell did they know that ?_ he found himself wondering. Teva had elaborated on just which questions had been asked of her, and that hadn't been one of her answers. _They're fucking with your head, Logan. Trying to get you to talk. _He wanted to tell that inner voice to fuck off and let him be, but it was having none of that. _You couldn't save her. The least you can do is hold your damn tongue, not let them destroy your memory of her._

"Which is why I'm hoping you'll cooperate," the woman said, now addressing Logan again. "She's dead, what could we possibly do to her now?"

Logan cleared his throat, finding that he'd healed enough to speak again though his voice was rougher than usual.

"Do ya think I'm simple, lady?" He resisted the urge to growl at her, she'd yet to be intimidated by him for all she didn't seem to care for Jameson's methods of coercion. "There's several dozen nasty things ya can do to a dead body. I ain't gonna give ya any reason to dissect her for shits and giggles."

She seemed about to speak again when a cold, dispassionate voice came through a speaker on the wall next to the door.

"That's enough. Leave him. Ms. Towers, please report to Section C, Room 304."

* * *

"What would you recommend?" Riggs asked, watching Weapon X on the monitor. "He has a remarkable capacity for enduring pain and there's only so much damage one can inflict on someone with unbreakable bones."

Towers opened her mouth to answer but was cut off by another voice.

"Ya gotta get into his head." Creed stood inside the doorway. "Mess with his mind."

Riggs raised an eyebrow. "Is there an echo in here? The adamantium you have in common with Weapon X means we can't send one of our psionics in to do the job."

"Really." Creed drew the word out into multiple syllables, infusing it with obvious sarcasm. "Don't they pay you some obscene amount of money, Riggs? Listen close – what'd they do to break 'im before? Fuckin' with someone is somethin' anyone with half a brain – like Wade – can do, ya just gotta know their weakness. Figure out the chinks in the armor."

"Maybe we should ask Wade, then."

Creed bared his fangs. "Ooh, that stung. Shut yer trap, feeb, ya ain't my boss."

Towers put her hand on Riggs' arm to forestall a response and possible bloodshed.

"Your insight would be much appreciated, Victor."

He smiled at her. "See? Flies an' honey." He flung a hand at the monitor. "Ya gotta combine the pain with somethin' he can't handle or he'll just shake it off. Now that he thinks his girl is dead he's got one big thing left, one thing he clings to like it's a fuckin' lifeline, an' that his humanity. His friends, his family, his memories. When they tried to break him the last time he didn't even have that much but it might be easier to tear him apart now than before."

Creed shifted, leaning one massive shoulder against the wall.

"An' ya might not be able to get into his head like a psi but they didn't brainwash him that way – they stuck shit in his grey matter and played 'im like _Halo_."

Riggs looked like he wanted to hurt Creed but he was slowly nodding anyway.

Towers had been writing notes frantically.

"That how to go after you, Sabretooth? Take away your humanity?"

The big feral stared at him a moment and then burst out laughing, holding his abdomen like it hurt.

"Hoo, Christ." Creed grinned but his eyes went dead, making the two humans back up a step or two. "I ain't had 'humanity' since I killed my parents. Might be I wasn't born with any in the first place. Wanna test that theory?"

"Thank you, Victor," Towers said, trying to head off a confrontation.

Creed tipped an imaginary hat at her.

"If ya'd let me know when they fun starts I'd be much obliged."

"Um. Sure." She waited until he was gone before exhaling sharply. "They won't be very angry with him if he end up gutting you, Michael. And I don't want to end up guilty by association."

She flipped through her notes and then looked back up.

"I'm going to go back and look at the records. I didn't pay enough attention to what happened with the Project, and I don't want to end up doing something else that won't work."

* * *

"Do you think he suspects anything?"

"It's been five minutes," Towers replied to the tech, a cadaverously-thin man who hadn't been working there long enough for her to remember his name.

He'd been brought up from one of the labs to handle the delicate procedure of inserting various wires and probes into Weapon X's brain. The devices used decades ago had been effective for their time, and these new ones were based on the same technology only with many improvements that reduced the margin for error while increasing effectiveness and ease of use. The tech had kept up a steady stream of chatter explaining what he was doing that Towers had mostly blocked out while putting the finishing touches on programs she'd been developing and coding all morning.

The subject had been secured in a chair as a precaution beyond the paralyzing effect achieved with the inhibitor embedded in his cerebral spine; after his escape from the metal cuffs they weren't taking any chances, since they needed to allow his healing factor to come up to full power so that the procedure would be the same as before. Two guards with both tranq guns and actual firearms stood by the door as yet another precaution against rebellion. Everyone in the room had been briefed as to the escape of Weapon X following his original captivity, and they all knew the fate that awaited them should he gain his freedom.

A neck-ruffling scent caused Towers to turn and she bit back a yelp at finding Creed standing at her shoulder.

"Howdy," he said, baring his fangs. When he looked up and saw Weapon X studded with probes and needles and other things he actually shuddered, and Towers recalled that Creed had undergone much the same experiments. The reaction wouldn't have been obvious in the average person; it was his usual nonchalance and utter lack of regard for much of anything dangerous that made that one small gesture of unease look like a screaming fit from anyone else.

She heard him inhale and then he chuckled.

"Dream Angels?" he asked. "I figured ya for a more sophisticated scent."

"It was a gift," she replied, trying to concentrate on the words and numbers scrolling across the monitor. She knew he was just trying to unnerve her. "Are you sure you want to be here for this? It might cause flashbacks."

The way he growled as an answer let her know that her barb had hit its mark; Riggs may have been in danger of evisceration but Creed seemed to find women who stood up for themselves intriguing. Even so, in a small, petty gesture, he swiped the rolling stool from under her console and sat down on it.

"Is he ready?" she asked the tech.

"All readouts are nominal," he replied. "My name's Grant, by the way."

"Wonderful." She tapped a few buttons on the keyboard, adjusted a few feeds. "Alright. Attempt #1, Weapon X Conditioning. Towers, Lydia directing with aid."

"Grant, Charles," the tech supplied.

"Initiating."

The machines began their work, taking on a high-pitched whine that rose until it passed human hearing, though apparently Creed could still hear it judging by his cursing.

"You're welcome to leave," she offered, not taking her eyes from the task at hand. She didn't expect a reply and she didn't get one.

Across the room, on the other side of the reinforced glass meant to protect the workers, Weapon X jerked in the chair. The EKG started beeping rapidly followed by the EEG going off.

"Is it critical?" she asked Grant.

He shook his head. "Within the range that's supposed to be normal for him. The same thing happened the last time and he was fine."

Towers added details to her notes and then settled in, accepted Grant's stool with a nod.

* * *

He knew where he was but didn't know why he was there. He didn't remember coming back to the burnt-out husk of the original Weapon Plus facility, the one he'd decorated the walls of with the blood of his many tormentors. The last time he'd been there he'd accidentally activated the S.H.I.V.A. Protocol, a robot designed to kill him and with a failsafe to restore his lost memories so that he would be incapacitated. All it served to do was trigger his feral nature and he'd destroyed it, without regaining his memories.

As he walked down the hallway he saw broken and bleeding bodies that covered much of the floor, some staring with sightless eyes. Logan recognized the method of their massacre, severed limbs and heads, bellies slashed open to released their contents of viscera and worse things.

He wandered somewhat aimlessly and as he came to a doorway that he knew lead to the chamber where the adamantium had been bonded to his skeleton, searing pain stole his breath and his sight. When he opened them again he found himself floating in that tank full of embryonic fluid meant to aid in the bonding process as well as keep him from contracting any infections. He screamed, or at least he tried to around the oxygen mask strapped to his face.

He could see the liquid adamantium snaking through the tubes attached all over his body and again the pain ate at his sanity.

Then he blinked and he was back in the corridor. He'd fallen to his knees and now he lifted his hands, expecting to find the probes but his flesh was whole, unmarked. Shakily he got to his feet and walked past that room, coming to another.

This was where they had begun his programming. Various wires and rusted boxes lay within the 10'x10' cell, and equally-rusted chair a few feet away from them. No bodies here.

Something caught his eye, a marking on the wall. It was a design of some variety of flowering vine. He touched it, finding it vaguely familiar, before he was plunged into another nightmare.

He was naked in the snow. His vision was partially obscured by a helmet on his head, his body draped with wires attached to heavy batteries dangling here and there. Before he could make heads or tails of it he caught the scent of blood and the beast took over.

At first it smelled like a wounded bear, blood and musk, then it changed. The scent was somehow cleaner and now he knew it was something else. The beast saw only prey while the man, shoved down and screaming, recognized one of the girls he thought of as a daughter.

Jubilee was crouched, one arm cradled against her body and a wound dripping blood down her face.

"Thank God," she said, apparently seeing nothing wrong with the situation. "I thought I was a goner."

He barely understood her and he growled at her.

"Wolvie?" she said, her voice becoming worried. "Hey, it's me, Jubes. Y'know, your little firecracker." Her tremulous smile was unconvincing even to the beast.

Quick as thought, almost quicker, his claws emerged and he was on her, attacking with the ferocity of his namesake.

She fought back weakly, crying out in pain and sobbing his name, begging for mercy.

Her blood steamed where it touched the snow and finally she was silent.

He was back in the tank, thrashing. He hadn't been completely conscious when he'd been bonded in reality but now he was and the pain was so much worse. Combined with the knowledge of what he'd done, who he'd killed, he couldn't think past it. Not even to try to break free.

Things shifted and he was back in the room with the weird design on the wall. His fingers traced it and he racked his brain trying to dredge up the memories associated with it. His attention was broken by the sound of sobbing and he followed it, tracked it. The scent of blood was once again a trigger, a force he couldn't resist. This time it was kitty, hiding in the adjacent room behind some old equipment.

She fought more than Jubilee had. Logan himself had trained her in martial arts and she knew how to fight even when wounded. Still, any damage she inflicted was momentary, and she didn't have his stamina, or his reflexes.

It was almost a relief to be back in the tank and he accepted the pain as penance, knowing it would never be enough.

His heart was beating so fast he thought he was either going to stroke out or go into cardiac arrest. He felt his blood pounding in his temples, and he must have actually been bleeding because suddenly there were streaks of red in the green-tinted nutrient bath, swirling with the movement of his body.

As he forced himself to calm down he lifted his hands and found the wounds on the back of them. His gaze was pulled to the blood again which was seemingly coalescing into that damned design, and another glance at his hands brought clarity. On the left was a simple band on his ring finger.

_Teva._

Her scent filled his senses and once more he was in the snow as before, but she wasn't there. It was another friend, another loved one, and he lost track of the cycles he went though, from tank to death and back again. All the while he strained to see if she was there while things blurred together.

She was bleeding from dozes of gashes, in groups of four and five, and there was bruising around her neck in the shape of fingers. She was looking down at her feet, her long red hair nearly obscuring her face.

He tried to say her name but what came out was an unintelligible growl.

She looked up, revealing more cuts on her face.

"Ah," she said, seeing him for the first time. "I did'nae expect to find you here." She stepped forward, leaving a trail of bloody bootprints, reaching out to touch him.

He flinched and took a step back.

"_Stad,"_ she said, _stay_. With deft, gentle hands she removed the helmet. "Oh, Logan. You're nearly lost."

Another growl left him, resolving into one word.

"Help."

Teva smiled sadly. "Beyond me, I'm afraid. Nothing short of death will bring this to an end." As if gleaning his thoughts as before, she continued. "I've sheltered you before. Seek the silence that will be your freedom."

He reached for her now and found that she was insubstantial, little more than a wraith so far as he was concerned. She began to fade from his sight.

"No," he growled in anguish. "Stay."

"I cannae," she replied, her voice barely a whisper. "I'm no really here, little more than a phantom. An afterimage. You have to find your own way."

Her image wavered and he cried out, trying to keep her there.

"Seek."

With the helmet off he could see, and seeing his mate had swept away some of the fog in his head. He remembered that she'd once told him he could control anything within his own mind; it might be painful but it was possible.

Her sudden appearance confirmed for him that he was not in the real world, instead once more a captive of those who only wanted to destroy him. He shut his eyes tight and concentrated as best he could, pulled on every last reserve he had to make manifest a place where he could be safe and make good his freedom.

When he opened his eyes again he was within the shelter Teva had provided for him to weather the storm of his returned memories. All was as before, even the doorway that would take him into her mind, except it shouldn't have been there. He shuffled across the floor and opened the door, only to find a solid metal wall. There were no seams, was no doorknob, no means of egress.

He his his knees, one hand pressed to the wall. If he couldn't get to her, how was he to get free?

_Seek the silence that will be your freedom._

Logan shifted, sitting on the floor in full lotus position, instinct beginning to take over. He drew on the things he had learned in various parts of Asia, the discipline of the _samurai_ and, more importantly, the method used by certain Tibetan monks to lower their body temperatures and slow their own heartbeats. His unique physiology allowed him to push far beyond what a normal person could achieve.

_...thud-thump...thud-thump...thud-thump...thud-thump..._

_

* * *

_

"What the hell is going on?"

After the rapid beeping of the EKG, now it was slowing, something that didn't show up in the records as having happened before.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Grant replied, his fingers moving in a blur over his keyboard. "He was reacting appropriately the the scenarios you programmed until just a few moments ago, I don't understand the readings."

Creed was muttering under his breath and then suddenly he laughed, a quick, sharp bark of sound.

"That little _shit_," he said. "Ya might wanna get some medics in here 'fore he croaks."

"Can't we shoot him up with adrenaline? Won't that get his heart going again?" Grant asked, looking panicked.

"Are you fuckin' stupid?" Creed asked. "His entire ribcage is covered in unbreakable, impenetrable metal. On second thought, go ahead and do it yourself, it might be funny."

* * *

He concentrated on his pulse, regulated his breaths to bring them into synch. It made him somewhat lightheaded but he pressed on, visualizing a light in his body becoming dimmer.

Something tried to pull him away, a sharp burst of pain like an icepick in his temple. The ones trying to destroy him had picked up on the fact he was doing something, was no longer completely trapped in a world of their making.

_...thud-thump...thud-thump...thud-thump..._

His heartbeat started to go back up and he fought it, fought them for control of his very being. He would _not_ become the monster again, the _thing_ that killed on command and didn't care about the blood on its hands. He'd fucking _kill_ himself before he let them break him.

The struggle brought more pain, threatened to break his concentration. His hands had curled into fists that he had to consciously release, his jaw clenched until he forced himself to relax. A strange sound made him open his eyes to find his shelter coming apart.

With a growl he diverted some of his attention to maintaining the structure, then he continued his task. His awareness began to drop away bit by bit.

_...thud-thump...thud-thump..._

Voices shouted distantly and something was making an infernal beeping sound while some kind of alarm blared. The butchers were trying to stop him, rein him back in, and judging by the commotion around his corporeal body, they weren't having an easy time of it.

_Choke on that_, he thought.

He had the sensation of floating, broken only by quick bursts of pain and bright light. Those became fewer and far between, though pressure was building behind his eyes that was almost impossible to ignore.

_...thud-thump..._

The light in his belly became grey, quietly pulsing with each lagging heartbeat, flowing out of him with each ponderous breath.

He was well aware that he might not survive this forced coma. It required finer, more minute control than he had not to cross the line into true, rather than temporary, purposely-induced death, and he hadn't the will nor the strength to do more than he was already doing. Not even the grief he knew would be visited upon his friends and family with two deaths was able to do more than make him feel a wave of regret and guilt, gone just as quickly as his breath.

_...thud_

He hoped Kurt was right, that there was a Heaven and the Teva was safe there now. He was sure as anything he was destined for someplace much hotter.

* * *

"Dammit!" Towers slapped her hand on the table while she watched the medics trying to stabilize Weapon X, stop whatever was killing him.

The EKG's beeping now came barely at all, spaced out by handfuls of seconds. The EEG was the same. It should have been impossible for this to happen, yet happening it was.

"Call it." One of the medics had his fingers under Weapon X's jaw. The other one looked up.

"TOD 6:26 pm. Heart failure."

Towers swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and went to the phone on the wall.

"Get me the Director."

"He knows," came the reply. "And he's not happy. He's sending someone down to take care of the body."


	10. Chapter 10

_Just an FYI , mostly to my loyal followers: I'm back on an antidepressant and I wanted to give you fair warning that they sometimes have the effect of making it impossible to write. I've only been on this one a little over a month and so far, so good._

_

* * *

_

"By all accounts she should be dead. After Creed backhanded her he managed to claw her up, and he kept going after she lost consciousness. Not to mention the fact she put on of his eyes out. He was beyond angry."

It was exceedingly quiet in the isolation ward save for the muted sounds of the heart monitor and the soft rush of air from the ventilator that had been required after she'd going into shock. They'd finally been able to stop giving her blood transfusions that morning.

"They ran tests on her blood and her DNA. She seems to have a low level healing factor like Weapon X."

Towers glanced up from her notes to look at the almost-comatose woman on the bed.

"She didn't mention that when she was questioned," she mused, looking over at her partner, Krista Sebring. "One more screwup to add to the list I've got going. I'm lucky they haven't sacked me yet."

Sebring shook her head.

"You have to commit literal murder around here to even get frowned at. There's so much hinky shit going on in this place, which is only one of a dozen or so – they're more worried that one of us will risk violating our non-disclosure agreements."

They were interrupted from further conversation by the quickening cadence of the heart monitor. Teva was having a fit, trying to pull the breathing tube out.

* * *

Voices punctured the bubble of Teva's mind, the cocoon she'd been wrapped in for who-knew-how0long, the darkness she'd floated in where she could pretend nothing hurt and nothing else existed. The passage of time held no meaning here, nothing did, but the bits of speech that somehow got in bothered her. The words were both familiar and foreign as if she'd understood them in another existence but now lacked the ability for comprehension.

She felt herself try to take a breath and then she was pulled violently out of that void into lights that felt too bright, and she was choking.

Someone was telling her to calm down, they were going to help her. Her throat hurt abominably and still she panicked, not knowing why she couldn't breathe. She wanted to tell that that voice to fuck off, ask them if they'd be calm if they couldn't breathe.

"On three I need you to exhale, hard. It's gonna hurt like hell."

She thought she nodded. Maybe. She at least tried to.

"Alright. One...two...three! Breathe!"

The offending apparatus felt like it was taking pieces of her insides out with it, and she couldn't stop coughing when she was finally able to draw air into her lungs on her own.

"Here." A blonde woman was standing by the bed holding out a cup. "Ice. It'll help, just don't take it all at once. Take your time."

Teva accepted it, the coughing easing somewhat.

"Where am I?" she asked after several attempts, her voice hoarse and cracking repeatedly.

The blonde exchanged glances with a brunette woman before answering.

"A Weapon Plus facility."

She'd been expecting that.

"Logan?"

Another exchange of significant glances.

"He didn't survive the reconditioning," the brunette replied after a moment. "He self-terminated."

Aside from a brief, sharp burst of pain in her middle, Teva couldn't find the energy to be shocked or to grieve. She merely huddled on the bed under her blankets and hoped that maybe oblivion would come to claim her again. It was preferable to dealing with this new reality, waiting for the numbness to wear off, but she didn't get to find out which came first.

A tall man of athletic build entered through the far door. He had three livid red scars bisecting his face, inflicted by an enraged Wolverine, and his cold green eyes nearly glowed with the light of hatred when they met hers. Somehow she knew that it was directed at her because of her association with Logan.

"You neglected to tell us that you have a healing factor," he began without preamble.

"So fucking what?" she replied, ever defiant. "Ye were only asking things that pertained to Logan and I sure as hell wasn't going to oblige ye." She lapsed into coughing for a moment before continuing, and she was pretty sure that her voice had taken on a growl. "I ken the kind of people - and I use that term loosely, – that ye are. Telling ye anything more about myself seemed like a good way to end up on a slab being stuck with needles and whatever else. Ye killed my husband and ye can go fuck yourself for all I fucking care."

He sat there a moment as if absorbing her rant, and when he spoke again his voice was completely void of emotion.

"Don't think that I wouldn't hesitate to paralyze you with the inhibitor and allow Creed to do as he pleases with you. Now that we know you can survive it he wouldn't need to be quite so careful." He put his hands on the rail of her bed and leaned in towards her, making sure to maintain eye contact; so close, she could see that he had flat, dead eyes like a snake's.

"An animal like him couldn't possibly satisfy all his urges in one go. I'm sure he knows things that are so much worse than rape."

She'd learned from the best how to maintain an expressionless face. That's not to say she didn't fear his threat; it was more that she was still trying to come to terms with recent events, and this was just one more thing on the pile.

"What is it ye want from me?" she asked with effort, having to pause several times.

He moved back somewhat.

"I want to know exactly what your X gene allows you to do. The full extent of your capabilities and your limits." A disturbing smile curved his mouth, the scar tissue pulling oddly at his lips. "And I want to know how you've now survived two attacks by Sabretooth."

"The first time was luck," she said automatically, without thinking about it. She'd gone mostly on autopilot despite the anger still roiling inside, making her feel like she was going to leap from the bed and attack someone, anyone, to hurt those who had hurt so many others.

"Oh?" He gestured off-handedly and was immediately provided with a chair.

She pulled her blankets closer and fought not to shiver with dread, knowing that she was damned whether or not she told him the truth.

"I caught him off-guard with -" She launched into another coughing fit, privately satisfied by his obvious annoyance at the delay. She sipped at the melted ice in her cup and started over.

"I caught him off-guard with my telepathy, long enough to use a gun. Even so he managed to nearly cripple me."

The Director nodded. "Yes, the medics mentioned that you had scar tissue on your leg. Obviously your healing factor helped mend it to a greater degree, but I've yet to come across another psionic with one. I haven't even _heard_ of one."

Teva sighed and took another sip. Already she was beginning to feel the pain in her chest and throat diminishing, and even she was somewhat amazed at how quickly it was happening.

"Even more interesting is the difference between your initial blood sample and one taken just this morning: higher white cell count, which could be accounted for if you had an infection, except your lymphocyte count is off the charts. I can only imagine that between those two tests, something changed inside of you."

She couldn't stop herself from snarling.

"Ye verrae much like the sound of your own voice."

He stared at her for an interminable moment. Then he reached inside a pocked of his suit coat and drew out a piece of paper.

"It seems you have as reckless a tongue as Weapon X." He placed the paper on the bed and watched her pick it up.

As soon as she touched it she knew it was a photograph, and when she turned it over she felt her stomach bottom out.

The photo had been taken at a distance but its subjects were nonetheless in sharp focus: Teva herself along with a small group of children from the Institute, the ones taking private music lessons from her. Several months back she'd taken them on a day trip to New York City to see a symphony perform at the Lincoln Center. She could see Arli and Molly, and Josh Guthrie who never stopped looking at her with hero worship and a bit of a crush; it had been very strange to have him almost-expertly play back her own music on his battered acoustic guitar, his voice one of the sweetest and most entrancing that she'd ever heard. When she'd expressed interest in having him sing back-up or a duet on her next album, he'd been over the moon and she'd loved knowing she could make him happy with such a simple thing.

"I will kill ye if ye so much as breathe in their direction," she vowed. For the first time she knew was 'seeing red' truly meant, the color invading her sight.

A sharp burst of pain prevented her from saying anything more. When she could see straight again she could see he was holding the controller to her inhibitor.

"Do as you're told, step as you're directed, obey those put above you and those children will never know the horrors I'd visit upon them."

Teva felt herself tremble with both pain and fear and not a little anger now, and she answered him without prompting.

"I have telepathy to a small degree but mostly I'm an empath. I can sense emotions in others and make them feel what I want them to feel; the telepathy lets me read those emotions better, understand motivations. A couple years ago I developed a secondary mutation linked to my empathy which allows me to mimic other mutants' powers."

"How exactly does that work?" There was a note of excitement in his voice, like a child with a new toy.

"I need some kind of emotional connection. The closer we are, the more control I have for longer."

Now he was nodding and the blonde woman was taking notes.

"Ah, I see. Your bond with Weapon X allowed you to mimic his healing factor. Are the mimics permanent once you've taken them?"

She shook her head.

"Only that one was, likely because it was the first. A week at most if I've a particularly strong emotional reaction to them."

"Hatred counts, I'd assume. You must have mimicked some of Creed's healing factor, which would explain the second blood test." He steepled his fingers under his chin. "Is it possible to recall others' powers or must you mimic again?"

"Once it's gone, it's gone."

He nodded again, this time turning his attention to the blonde.

"I want her DNA completely analyzed, perhaps there's a way to make things permanent." He tapped a finger on his chin while thinking. "Oh, and have the techs assess whether or not she's compatible with the X-2 enhancements."

The Director smiled again and this time Teva swore she never wanted to see such a look of evil ever again. It was downright inhuman.

Every part of her was screaming, in agony, in fear, in despair, in helplessness. The man she'd expected to share many, many decades with hadn't been able to withstand their machinations; how in the world could _she_ expect to survive?

A very small, previously-nonexistent voice from very deep inside of her questioned if she'd have been better off if she'd just not gone backstage, not met Logan. Just one night, five minutes of conversation, and somehow they've become inextricably linked together. Five minutes that were now the cause of so much torment that she saw no escape from. Five minutes that had her in the captivity of pure evil that wanted only to turn her into a source of the same, likely for a profit.

With some effort she choked off that voice, realized she was beginning to feel foggy.

"Make sure she's not going to relapse, Ms. Towers. We've stumbled upon something much more valuable than what we feared lost." He was halfway across the room when he stopped and turned back a moment.

"Will she be strong enough tomorrow?"

Towers nodded.

"Likely, but it'll be a couple days for the DNA analyses. We'll probably know yes or no on the X-2 in the morning, though."

"Excellent. Keep me apprised."

The blonde turned to Teva.

"Are you in any pain?" she asked.

Teva shrugged.

"Does it matter? I'm a fucking lab rat."

"To me, it matters. You're on a morphine drip but with the healing factor you probably need more. I can keep you under the rest of today and overnight."

"Whatever." Teva set her cup aside and lay back down, curling into the fetal position as if somehow that would keep her safe.

* * *

When next she awoke she was in a different room and she was strapped down on a cold steel table. One arm was secured at her side, the other at a 90-degree angle to her body, and when she turned her head she could see an IV catheter and port inserted into the bend of her elbow. Nothing else was connected to it for the moment but she knew that would change soon. The only thing protecting her modesty was a thin sheet, she'd been stripped of the hospital gown she'd been in before.

A couple people in labcoats moved about the relatively small room, seemingly uninterested in her at the moment. She used the time to take stock of herself, most notably that she was virtually pain free, though she couldn't move her head enough to see if she had any new scars. It had been somewhat amusing in the past that she could still get scars even with the healing factor.

Two familiar voices were coming closer, Towers and the Director followed by a very tall, thin man who was carrying a small metal case.

At sight of the Director she wanted to kick and scream, for all the good it would have done her; she couldn't claim super strength as one of her abilities. She still didn't know what he'd meant about the "X-2 enhancement" and she wasn't sure she _wanted_ to know, just that she didn't want to find out. Every time, though, that she thought of fighting back, of spitting in their faces, she didn't even need to close her eyes to see the consequences.

_Is this how Logan felt?_ she wondered. _Willing to do anything, to endure anything, just to keep me safe?_

The small traitorous voice piped up again.

_He tried and he failed. He should have known neither of us would get out alive._

Teva let her head fall back so that she was looking up at the ceiling, and when the tears came they disappeared quickly into her hair.

"Will she be able to handle both?" The Director was speaking to Towers.

"If she rejects the X-2 she won't survive the rest," she replied, heedless of their subject right there and able to hear clearly. "They'd already begun analyzing her DNA when they were brought in so that's already done."

"Without the X-2 this is just another failed experiment. Proceed as you see fit, I have other business to attend to but I'd like regular status reports."

"Understood. Grant," Towers said, turning her attention to the man who stayed behind, "get the X-2 ready. I'll prep her."

Teva kept her gaze skyward until Towers touched her arm.

"What are ye doing to me?" she asked, and she hated that her voice shook, that she sounded so helpless, so weak. She bit her lip, hard enough to draw blood but even that wasn't enough to take her mind off of what was happening.

The blonde pulled on latex gloves and then swapped the IV port with an alcohol pad.

"It's just some basic enhancements." Even with the inhibitor blocking her telempathy, Teva knew she was lying but she didn't press the issue.

Towers accepted to vials of a greenish, semi-viscous substance, and the sight of it was enough to trigger a flashback to something that she'd not physically experienced yet she had near-body memory of it.

In addition to all the other horrors Logan had experienced at the hands of these monsters' predecessors, he'd been injected with dozens of different things, some to see how he'd react to them, others to keep him docile and compliant.

For a moment that seemed an eternity she was in his memory and she could see the probes embedded in her body. She could even feel them, dozens of points that ached because the healing factor couldn't heal around the probes, and she felt Logan's sense of rage and helplessness, his absolute hatred for his tormentors; they wouldn't stop hurting him, wouldn't stop trying thing after thing, torture upon torture, and he didn't know _why_.

The _click_ of Towers popping one of the vials into a syringe pulled her back to the present, and she opened her eyes to see the blonde woman placing a needle on the syringe. From a nearby tray she took a bag of saline that she placed on a pole, then she attached an IV line from the bag to the catheter in Teva's vein.

The syringe was placed into the port on the line near her arm. Towers opened the line and began to slowly, carefully, inject the fluid into the helpless mutant.

Teva's experience of sharing Logan's memories and knowing how much pain he'd endured did not prepare her for the agony that she had no choice but to accept. Even strapped down she began to shake and seize, her muscles spasming in response. Distantly she noticed someone securing her head so she wouldn't inadvertently hurt herself.

It felt as if molten lava had been poured into every part of her body via her arm, her frantic heart dispersing it throughout. She tasted blood again in her mouth. Her eyes were shut tight as if that might protect her from this torment.

And just as she began to recover from it, as it began to wane, the techs began a fresh assault on her senses. She couldn't see anything, couldn't hear anything but a great rushing in her ears and her own heartbeat thumping away like an _o-daiko_ drum from Japan. Her skin felt as if it were going to slough off, and she sought the darkness that was barely within reach.


	11. Chapter 11

Betsy Braddock glanced at her co-pilot, more than a little disturbed the the usually-unflappable Kurt Wagner was fidgeting like a toddler on Red Bull. He'd not been still from the moment Professor Xavier informed the team of his worries that Logan and Teva had been gone long enough without contact, long enough that he had used Cerebro to locate them when they didn't answer several calls to their cellphones.

The restlessness had only gotten worse when only Logan's psychic signature was found, and not where it was expected to be. Betsy had almost told Kurt to stay home, that should could find their teammate on her own, but not even God Himself could have kept Kurt away from the man he'd adopted as a brother.

Even Kurt's tail was twitching erratically, the spade-shaped tip swishing back and forth behind his head. Betsy had to concentrate on blocking him out despite her considerable psychic defenses, simply because he was projecting so hard, but she couldn't begrudge him. She, too, saw Logan as a brother, had shared a psychic bond with the Canadian at one point, and she could not help but worry that the worst had happened, as it always seemed to. Mutants never got a happy ending though Logan's luck seemed to be worse than most.

"There is one place, just there," Kurt said, pointing through the cockpit window of the smaller aircraft they'd taken. The Blackbird was a bit too big and they weren't sure they'd have the room to set down either easily or stealthily, though that last wasn't too much of a concern. They'd found Logan out in the middle of bloody BFE, but even were it a more populated spot, she could influence anyone into believing they'd seen nothing at all.

"I see it," she replied, going through the motions with barely a thought. She was already scanning with both the craft's sensors and her own powers, the purple butterfly of her psychic energy seeking what might not be noticed with the other senses. "I've got him," she announced after a moment.

Kurt disappeared in a _bamf_ of brimstone, not even waiting for her in his eagerness since she'd already shown him where Logan was, and the deep snow at this high latitude wasn't enough to deter his determined bounding. He could hear Betsy behind him, cursing softly to herself as she picked her way carefully; ninjas just weren't suited to tromping through snow up to their knees.

They found him under a great stand of balsam firs, huddled in a fetal position as if even in unconsciousness he was trying to protect himself, and Kurt felt his stomach drop as he hit his knees. The feral mutant was wearing the remains of a t-shirt and jeans, and though he could survive nothing at all in lower temperatures, his condition was a worry.

"Logan," Kurt said quietly, reaching out with the top of his tail to touch the other man. He knew full well what Logan was capable of and that he could get his tail away faster than a hand.

When no response was forthcoming, Betsy arrived and knelt as well, heedless of the snow melting into her pants.

"Allow me," she said, reaching out with her psi. The purple butterfly alighted gently against the dark head of hair that was barely visible curled up as he was.

Logan groaned, a tortured sound that seemed incongruous to the fact he was physically fine, and Betsy felt her heart clench. While she couldn't penetrate further than the uppermost realm of his psyche without his conscious consent, that was enough to make her gasp and press a hand to her stomach at the wall of grief he couldn't fight past.

"Betts?" came his rough voice, more hoarse than she'd ever heard it before so that she had to lean forward to catch it, to understand him.

"I'm here, Logan. As is Kurt."

He relaxed a bare fraction, enough to lift his head and open his eyes, and there was such agony in their dark depths that she cried out.

Kurt scooted in close and pulled Logan up into his arms. The acrobat was probably one of a bare fraction who could even attempt physical contact like this without receiving a violent response. Even so, Logan's muscles clenched and his fingers gripped the back of Kurt's coat, knuckles white and hands shaking.

"We are here, _mein bruder_," Kurt said softly, one three-fingered hand rubbing at his friend's back while the other arm was locked tight around his shoulders to keep him upright. "What has happened?"

For several long minutes, all Logan could get out was a mumbling growl, as if he'd forgotten the ways of speech. He shook with the effort until he went almost slack again, exhausted, his head against Kurt's shoulder. His eyes went out of focus.

Betsy called her telepathy to the fore again, letting Logan see the butterfly that made a mask over her face.

"May I?" she asked, receiving the barest nod of acceptance. This time she floated but a moment at the periphery of his thoughts to anchor herself before she went deeper, afraid of what she would find there.

_ Blood. Sabretooth. Screaming. Death._

She could see it clearly as any image on a television, played in nauseating technicolor brutality, his own recollection of Teva's fight against Victor Creed; Betsy herself knew full well what he was capable of, had nearly died at his hands. Teva's ultimately-futile fight was hard to watch, helpless without any way to defend herself against a man whose strength probably ranked close to Piotr's while enduring anything she could throw at him.

The image slowly went red, not just with Logan's beast at the surface but also with the one Teva had acquired from her newly-wed husband. Betsy had to pull back more abruptly than she wanted to but she didn't think she could do any more damage to his mind than had already been done. The grief was a very effective insulation.

When she shared the information with Kurt, the blue man held Logan tighter, and only then did Logan show any signs of humanity as he broke. It was a mark of not just how far gone he was but also how much he trusted them that he didn't care, didn't hold it in, didn't worry that he might appear weak to them. If anything, it was a relief that he could drop his guard instead of cramming it down like he'd done so often in the past, waiting until it exploded into a berzerker fury. It meant he would be able to heal from this latest blow.

With his body half-burrowed against Kurt's, Logan let Betsy hold him from behind so that he was surrounded. His sobs were painful to hear coming from a man for whom crying was a rarity, his body jerking with each ragged breath in and out, and even though he'd surrendered to the pain his muscles still corded with stress. And for the first time, he was chilled to the touch. Always before when Betsy touched him he was warm, very nearly radiated heat.

An unknown time passed as they supported him, ignoring the snow soaking their clothing. He was quiet, now, though there was still a fine tremor that had nothing to do with the cold. When he shifted they eased their hold on him, helped him get to his feet and caught him when he stumbled for a moment.

They let him set the pace back to the jet, strapping him in when he seemed unable to do so himself. Betsy couldn't remember ever seeing him so lost, nearly helpless, and she wondered if Teva's death had permanently wounded his psyche. She'd been able to feel the raw edges where the telempath's link to Logan had been ripped apart, knew that that kind of injury could do irreparable mental damage.

He was silent on the flight back, one hand clenched in a fist in his lap, the other dangling. Betsy and Kurt didn't force him to talk and didn't speak to each other except regarding the flight itself.

Charles and Hank were waiting for them in the hangar. Betsy quickly shared what she knew, watched her mentor and her friend react to the news; Hank seemed the hardest hit.

"Could you handle a trip to the medbay," the doctor asked, "or would you rather get some rest?"

Logan blinked. "I just wanna sleep for now," he mumbled, not looking at any of them. With no further words he walked off and after a moment Kurt followed.

The German was for once at a loss for words, and unsure if Logan even registered much of what was said to him. He wasn't naturally talkative but this was laconic even for him. He was likely in shock, if the glazed look in his eyes was any indication. He moved like one in a trance.

Once in his room, Logan collapsed facedown on the bed and appeared to fall asleep.

Kurt sat at the desk, moving a stack of books from the chair. They were all English textbooks from the writing class Teva had been teaching, with dogeared pages and numerous neon colored flags sticking out.

The desk itself was rather neat because of Logan's natural tendency towards order. His Japanese textbook lay on top of his closed netbook along with a pen and notepad.

The rest of the room was controlled chaos. Teva tended to keep her clothing neatly put away whereas Logan devolved into typical male behavior with clothes scattered here and there, focused mainly in a pile by the hamper. Neither was given to knickknacks; Teva's better guitars were in their stands against one wall, while Logan had put the Clan Yashida_ daishō_ on display on top of a tall chest of drawers, backed by a scroll in _kanji._

It made Kurt's heart ache to see it all, to know that Logan had been dealt another harsh blow, one that Kurt was unsure Logan could come back from. The older man had become withdrawn after losing Mariko so long ago; Teva had been entwined with Logan mind and soul, known him more intimately than any other person in his long life. To lose her would mean losing a piece of himself.

Kurt made a quick 'port to his own room and back, just long enough to grab his battered copy of _The Lord of the Rings_ trilogy and a bottle of water. He wasn't sure how long Logan would be out but he didn't want him to wake up alone.

Tom Bombadil had just wished the four Hobbits farewell when a strangled groan pulled Kurt's attention from his book.

Logan was sitting up, his hands rubbing at his face and then into his hair. "Hey," he said, his voice soft and hoarse.

_"Guten abend,"_ Kurt replied, placing one thick fingers as a bookmark. He knew better than to ask how his friend was doing, and he didn't want to dredge up pain. "I expect you'd like a shower. Shall I scrounge us up some dinner?"

"Sure." Well, monosyllabic answers were better than nothing. At least it was in the affirmative.

He gave Logan 20 minutes, more out of propriety on his own part; the Canadian wasn't given to fits of modesty and would think nothing of Kurt being there if he came out of the bathroom naked. When he returned he found Logan – clean and dressed in his usual t-shirt and jeans – out on the terrace, face turned towards the setting sun.

"How long's it been?" he asked.

"Six weeks. It took us a little over one to track you down when we became concerned." Kurt set down the tray he'd brought, carrying bowls of reheated stew, crusty pieces of homemade bread and cups of cider. "We were only able to find your psychic signature."

Logan nodded, still looking away. "Weren't even at the cabin a day," he said, voice quiet. "Knew it was comin'. Thought maybe we'd get more time."

Kurt heard the soft patter of blood on stone, knew Logan was unsheathing his claws just enough to break the skin. He'd seen him do it before and knew it was more an unconscious reflex than deliberate self-harm. Even so, he was slightly surprised that Logan was talking at all. He'd expected silence.

He knew better than to bring up anything religious. As long as they'd known each other, the closest Logan had ever come to declaring faith was to say he was sure someone out there was deliberately playing with him. He practiced a version of Zen Buddhism but that was more philosophy than theology, and he didn't always adhere to the Eight-Fold Path.

"How far's the news spread?"

The question drew Kurt from his thoughts. "Just the staff, so far. We didn't want to worry the children, I expect Charles will address it in a day or two."

"The kids'll take it hard."

"Logan-"

"I'm fine," Logan cut him off. He laughed roughly. "No, that's a load of horseshit. It hurts, Elf, worse than I thought it could, but she'd kick my ass if I let it take me down." He turned to his friend, absently wiping blood on his pants; his other hand held something, his fingers worrying at it. "I wanna fuckin' howl at the moon for all the good it'd do me."

He sat down at the small wrought-iron table, picked up a cup of cider and drained it like a man dying of thirst. When he set it down, he also put down whatever was in his other hand.

"Is that...?" Kurt leaned forward, his lambent yellow eyes easily seeing in the growing dusk. On the table between them lay Teva's wedding ring. "How did you get it?"

Logan shrugged. "Was in my pocket along with a bit of paper with Deadpool's stupid symbol on it."

"But why would he do something like that?"

"Because he's batshit crazy?" Logan shrugged again. "No use tryin' to figure Wade out." He lifted the chain holding his dogtags over his head, opened the catch and slid the ring onto it before closing it again and putting the chain back around his neck.

"Thanks, Kurt." He didn't elaborate what he meant, but it didn't matter.

"Anything, Logan."


	12. Chapter 12

"What exactly is the point of all this?"

The Director sat behind his desk, fingers steepled against his chest. "I would think that our agenda is obvious, but I'll enlighten you: it's clear that mutants aren't going away any time soon. If anything, there seem to be more of you every day. I aim to find them and utilize their abilities to do things ordinary humans cannot."

Teva stared at him. She no longer felt fear in his presence, even if she was prevented from attacking him. He just didn't engender any emotion in her. "You make it sound altruistic."

He smiled, the feigned mirth not even reaching his cold snake's eyes. "Oh, surely not. We cater to the highest bidder. After all, the original aim of the Program was creating supersoldiers – it's where Captain America came from." His hands lowered. "Make no mistake, we are in the business of making money and controlling mutants who must not be allowed to roam free. No sense in not using them."

She didn't really care one way or another, though some part of her felt as if she should care – and should be outraged. Apathy was a powerful leveler, though, and it colored most of her thoughts of late. Any time she tried too hard to break past it she found herself unable to, with a raging headache for her efforts.

The only other emotion she ever felt was rage – mostly directionless save when she was anywhere within smelling distance of Victor Creed. The feline feral took entirely too much pleasure from trying to piss her off and, to be honest, he didn't have to try to hard. Thoughts of killing him and making him suffer ran deep in her, deeper than the apathy, touching some part of her that hurt whenever she tried to look at it. There was something profoundly wrong inside her but she didn't know what.

Training sessions let her release some of that pent-up energy, the tension that knotted between her shoulders and the base of her skull. After her discussion with the Director she met Deadpool in a room that passed as a gym.

"Heya, Red," he greeted her. He had a 9mm in his hands, fingers expertly checking the clip and then the chamber.

"My name is Teva," she shot back. "Echo, if you must." It was the codename they'd given her, a reference to her mimicking ability. She hated it, the same way she hated the sense of _d__éjà vu_ she got with every training session, as if she'd done this over and over but couldn't remember how many times, or when, or where. Had she ever had another life?

Deadpool shrugged. "I got nicknames for everyone." He was relentlessly cheerful, probably because he was insane. He set the gun down and then removed his other firearms, followed by the two katana.

"No weapons?"

Another shrug. "They wanna see if you can take me down with what you mimic off me."

She frowned. "And you're okay with this?"

"Already had someone try something similar. He couldn't quite get it, though, 'cause I'm crazy. Even I don't know what I'm gonna do from one second to the next." Clever hands opened the release on his main weapon harness, tossing it to join the rest on the table. "You didn't do so bad the first time we met."

Memory boiled up. "You were distracted by my tits." Her clothing now was black with grey accents, fitted like a second skin so that even if she wasn't flashing cleavage it was still damned obvious she was female.

He grinned. "They're nice tits, babe." He crooked fingers at her, Matrix-style. "Let's see if it's still a problem."

Without warning she moved forward, already reaching out with her psi and finding what she was looking for. She no longer required an empathic bond with her donor; now it was as simple as establishing contact through telepathy, the briefest touch, though her use of the mimicked ability wasn't always strong. With each successive attempt she found she had more control and more finesse.

Wade's mind was slippery, his unique brand of crazy making it difficult to hold on. She knew better than to attempt any psychic attack on him but, even with his healing factor, he wasn't immune to physical attacks.

Teva felt herself fall away, gave herself over to the pattern of hitting and dodging without trying too hard to direct it. She'd had a bad habit of over thinking, of putting too much thought into how she moved, so that she was always half a step too slow, her strikes evaded and her dodges failing. It hadn't been until she began training with Wade that she began to understand going on instinct.

_No, that's not true, a small voice in her mind said. You knew about instinct, you'd just never had the ruthlessness to use it so easily._ The voice had a slight growl to it, sounding more like Creed than she cared to admit. _Now it's you and not just a part of you._

Wade blocked her strike and forced her back, his moves no longer a blur to her. She saw it all in stark clarity, even as she defended, losing ground but only taking half of his blows instead of all of them.

And she noticed he tended to go left more often than not, the only slightly-predictable thing he did; nothing else had rhyme or reason to it.

She let his next punch almost connect, coming so close and moving so fast it ruffled her hair. She grabbed his arm and let his own momentum pull him into an arm lock behind his back. If there hadn't been nearly a foot of height difference between them he could have slammed the back of his head into her face but the disparity also meant she couldn't get her arm around his neck, either. Instead she hooked his leg and pulled, sprawling them both on the floor.

Wade bucked up, loosening her grip and lashing out with a kick that snapped her head back. The next kick would have taken her in the stomach had she not rolled away, flipping backwards and then back up onto her feet. He gave her no time to relax as he moved in hard and fast, catching her in the mouth and splitting her lip, pushing her until she was nearly swaying with fatigue.

As quick as it began it was over. Wade stepped back with his hands held at his sides. "You're getting better," he praised her with a grin. "And the healing factor is responding quicker than before."

Teva nodded, swiping at the trickle of blood down her chin. All the little wounds and bruises were already gone, though the memory of pain lingered. "Still not good enough to take you."

"The only person 'taking' him is me." Copycat crossed the floor to lay a possessive hand on Wade's arm.

The redhead cocked her head to the side. "I may not be good enough to best him but you're nothing." The blue shapeshifter missed no chance to press her claim on the merc, no matter that Teva had never so much as looked at Wade as anything but a teammate. "Perhaps you should remember that, little girl."

Only Wade's grip kept Vanessa from hitting Teva while the girl spat expletives at her. Teva couldn't find it in herself to care and walked away.

Her exit was barred by the massive frame of Sabretooth.

"My turn," he said, his voice a dangerous purr. He moved forward, pushing her back towards the mat. "If you're done with the idiot, that is."

Vanessa protested. "He's not an-"

"Shut up." Teva heard Victor say it at the same time she did. She spoke by herself when she said, "Take her somewhere else, Wade, or she's going to get hurt."

The blue shifter tried to protest again even as Wade collected his arsenal and dragged her away.

Teva turned back to look at Creed, knew her face echoed the annoyance on his. "I'm assuming no weapons for you, either."

The big feral grinned. "Built-in, sweetheart. But let's make it interesting." He leaned past her and flicked the light switch, plunging them into darkness.

"I can see as well as you."

"Yeah, but can ya fight as well?" The direction of Creed's voice told her he'd moved away, behind her.

She wasn't afraid. Her senses were as good as his, eyesight and smell and hearing as keen. He wouldn't be able to surprise her, even if he could move near silently.

There was a sixth sense, too, that of presence, that she felt. It wasn't really psionically-related; baseline humans had it, some kind of throwback to when the race hadn't been apex predators. She knew when Creed was less than a foot away and moving fast.

She couldn't hit him the way she'd hit Wilson. Both men had healing factors but Creed had adamantium grafted to his bones; any face hits would hurt her more than it would hurt him.

There was also the fact that his reinforced skeleton meant he struck with more force, breaking bones more than he left bruises unless he checked himself. She knew he wasn't going to do that.

At the last moment she dropped, felt him pass over her. She grabbed his hair in one hand and kicked him in the face with her steel-toed combat boot, twice before letting go and dancing away from a swipe of claws. It wasn't likely she'd done much damage but healing factors only healed, they didn't do jack or shit for pain. And a boot in the face hurt like a bitch.

"Caught me," Creed allowed. "Point for you." He was on her, then, leaving slashes down her back in bright stripes of pain. She tried to slip away from a backhand but only succeeded in lessening the damage. Her jaw exploded in pain, almost but not quite breaking. She found herself on the ground, breathless, watching him stalk away.

He was playing with her. He could easily take her down without killing her but he was every inch the cat, teasing his prey and enjoying the fear.

But she had none. Not even with the niggling memory that she'd gone up against him before, won once and lost another time.

Teva waited for him but he wasn't going to come after her again. She closed her eyes, sought with her other senses and launched herself at him. He let some of her hits connect, taunting her the whole time.

"Part of ya remembers," he said, swatting away a punch. "Done this before but ya don't know when or where."

She kicked him again, caught his knee and earned a grunt of pain rather than a busted joint.

"Part of ya knows what I did to ya. What I took." She could hear the grin in his voice. "And ya hate me even though ya want me." He grabbed her from behind, held her tight against him while she struggled. "Scent don't lie."

"Not gonna happen," she ground out, stomping on his foot.

He just laughed. "I could just take it, like I did the last time." His head dipped, his breath ruffling her hair. "Might be worse for ya if ya got off from me raping ya."

Memory exploded and so did her head, pain making her spasm in his grip. Pain blossomed in her hands, too, and she heard Creed curse as he jerked away and let her go.

Teva opened her eyes, looked down at her hands balled into fists. From the backs of each of her hands, just above the knuckles, came three blades of pure blue psionic energy. It hurt worse and felt better than anything, coursing through mind and body like a high. She laughed and lunged at Creed.

He grunted in pain, trying to stay away from her claws, apparently well acquainted with the damage they could inflict. He actually cried out when she clipped his arm.

She ran purely on instinct now. Body memory told her how to fight, how to adapt to using the claws, as if she'd had them forever. It felt good. It felt right.

Creed wasn't exactly afraid but his scent held wariness, caution. He evaded more now than he attacked.

She couldn't put a word to what she felt. Bloodlust, maybe, even though her claws drew no blood, left no physical damage behind. They sank in like real blades and apparently hurt just as bad, judging by his reactions. She heard someone growling and realized it was herself.

Her claws hit him low in the torso, slammed in and she dragged them all the way around to his back without taking them out, then she grabbed his hair again, bringing her knee up into his spine and dropping him. One set of claws punched into his neck, pinning him, the other held just short of piercing his skull.

The lights came on, blinded her to the guards pouring in and pulling her off Creed. She struggled, took out two with the claws before pain once against bloomed in her head. Someone had used her inhibitor to subdue her. The pain in her hands disappeared as her psi shut down.

Creed lay on the floor, unresponsive.

Teva laughed again, triumphant. God, but that had felt amazing. Even with the pain from the inhibitor and the encroaching headache from having her psi dampened, she was exhilarated. Taking Creed down satisfied the darkness in her, the need to hurt. She wanted to do it again.

Instead she found herself in a lab being questioned about what she'd done. They wanted to see her claws, their safety guaranteed by the inhibitor paralyzing select muscle groups. The claws didn't hurt so much emerging the second time. The blue psi blades were oddly beautiful.

They finally released her to her cell where she showered off the blood and ate ravenously before she passed out from pure exhaustion. She didn't even have time to think about what Creed had taunted her with.


End file.
